Problems caused by mink. The question now is whether the virus will become established in the wild population. “It comes down to the susceptibility of the species and the chance of the virus to spread around,” he said. In some farms in the Netherlands, the virus seems to have circulated in the farm for quite some time before being detected, van der Poel said. The Netherlands had an outbreak in April; Danish mink farms quickly followed in June. Denmark, the world’s largest mink exporter, has seen arguably the worst of this species-leaping horror show. In mid-November, a virologist at the Danish health authority told Nature that COVID-19 mutations believed to have originated in mink had shown up about 300 times in people in Denmark. In the United States as of 2020, there are some 120 mink farms producing 2 million pelts a year, with a farm-gate value of US$80 million. Mink will forage several acres to find food and if you keep free roam chicken, they will be targeted. Once the coronavirus finds mink, it works fast. Medford, a city of just more than 4,000 people in north-central Wisconsin, used to call itself the mink capital of the world. These receptors are found in all animals, but their form varies somewhat between species. So mink can get the coronavirus, and they can get it from people; as cases in humans rose precipitously in Wisconsin this fall, Poulsen and his staff figured it was just a matter of time before someone on a mink farm sneezed it into the mink population. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. That is why a state advisory committee of health care experts in January recommended that an estimated 300 mink farm workers be included in the next phase of the vaccine rollout. Thousands of minks are dying of Covid-19 in the United States. There was a problem. Pigs have ACE2 receptors that seem structurally good for Covid-19, but pigs don’t seem to be vulnerable in the real world, said Weese. Angela Bosco-Lauth, a biomedical researcher at Colorado State University who has studied Covid-19 in cats and dogs, said she finds the mink situation confusing since ferrets, which are close relatives to minks, seem to be less susceptible. First, my study showed that American mink on Navarino Island shows a high occupancy (number of surveyed sites with mink present) during the summer, occupying forested areas away from the shoreline or even streams. And as it spreads among mink, and between minks and humans, and between humans and humans, it can mutate; it already has. And it is also deplorable in terms of animal welfare. In early November, the country ordered a complete cull of the farmed mink population; even so, by the beginning of December, 289 mink farms in northern Denmark had reported outbreaks.. In the main, though, mink have not really proved a major problem in game management. And Medford is still a mink town; there are 12 mink ranches in the area, within five miles of one another—and the coronavirus has now reached two of them. Mink are an occasional menace in pheasant release pens, where they can kill large numbers of birds, and this can be a very costly loss. But in some cases, the animals can develop severe interstitial pneumonia. “I would really like to be wrong, but I fear mink are just the tip of the iceberg of what could be coming,” she added. “There’s no money to do that on the federal or state level, so that’s all on the farm.”. “This is not surprising and in line with what we expect for zoonotic viruses.”. They’re also prone to pneumonia. Her paper is currently a pre-print, meaning it has not been peer reviewed. Since then, the global mink situation has significantly worsened. My love of. So did the local veterinarians. On December 13, the world took another step toward this scenario: The USDA announced the first known case of a non-captive wild animal with the coronavirus. “I am just concerned that we are not looking well enough,” she told me. (Source: Fur Commission USA.) “Viruses in these animals are pushed to acquire specific mutations, or they're outcompeted and essentially die off,” she said. Both mink and human cells have specific receptors that allow the virus to attach to them, which made mink a greater concern than other farmed animals, including Wisconsin’s immense dairy-cow population, he says. In general mink are about 18 to 24 inches in length, including its bushy 5- to 7-inch tail, and weighs 1 1/2 to 3 pound. France announced it would ban farming mink by 2025. (In the past decade or two, China became the main export market for U.S. and European mink; demand for fur coats there now dwarfs that of every other country. The damage mink have done to our wildlife has been enormous, with water voles, moorhens, kingfishers and our endangered white-clawed crayfish being among the worst casualties. The mink farms provide a “perfect storm” for the virus because minks are vulnerable to Covid-19, and thousands are kept in close proximity, said Weese. Mink are usually escapees from mink farms which were established here in the 1950′s. The bodies of thousands of culled mink, buried in shallow graves, then proceeded to ferment. He said his research suggests minks do not always develop clinical symptoms, and their fatality rate is less than 5%. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. If the virus keeps spilling over into wild animals, it could circulate in parallel and keep reseeding outbreaks among humans. J. Scott Weese, director of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses at Ontario Veterinary College, said viruses typically affect certain species more than others. Why does Denmark have mink farms – are there any in the UK? His team published a paper in June about Covid-19 infections in minks. By 11:30 a.m., Poulsen was driving a van 250 miles upstate; by the time he arrived at the ranch, at 3:30 p.m., several hundred more mink had died. The European mink is also known to eat some vegetation. The lab alerted the USDA, the state department of agriculture, the state department of public health, and a local public health official. The mink problem in Denmark is a modern version of an age-old old dilemma: How can we care for people and animals at the same time? However, mink are not known to be aggressive towards humans. It is usually signs of mink present at the kill site if there are numerous birds killed and lined up in a row, as mink are known to kill more than they can consume. Nine countries have now reported outbreaks on mink farms. Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change, Science Photographer Of The Year 2020: See How Science And Climate Change Are Impacting All Our Lives, Sea Shanties And Dance Therapy Both Use Rhythm To Make People Move, Amazed Scientists Using ‘Time Machine’ Find Young Galaxy Near The ‘Big Bang’ That Defies Explanation, Weather Analytics Move From Predicting Storms To Predicting Outages For Better Grid Resiliency, 18,000-Year-Old Seashell Is Earliest Musical Instrument Of Its Kind, A Spouse’s Guide To The National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering And Medicine, You Need To Re-Learn Our Solar System. Mink pose a biosecurity risk, said Stephanie Schauer, Wisconsin's immunization program manager. These differences can be explained in part by how the virus attacks cells, said Weese. Some animals seem to have receptors that are easier for the virus to attach to, he said. Efforts to ban fur farming, often in response to campaigns led by animal rights activists, are now accelerating. In Europe, the already-shrinking mink industry is now quickly crumbling. “I feel terrible for everyone involved, whether it’s the feed mill, the veterinarian, the family. Latest Articles. Please refresh the page and try again. It is their impact on other wildlife species – notably water voles - that has proved the greatest cause of concern. The Danish mink outbreak also birthed a new strain of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. If 10,000 cats were raised in a colony, there would likely be a lot of sick cats and a reasonable number of dead ones, he said. 62 animal tests cost $3,000, which is a big deal to a farm that just suffered losses of tens of thousands of dollars,” Poulsen said. By Sunday afternoon, the CDC had teams on the ground to interview ranch owners and take stock of the environment. Mink are active in most every state except one or two in the southwestern region of the United States. I cover topics like new biology research and scientific explainers on viral animal stories. Scientists don’t know why mink in particular seem to get very sick, but the crowded, caged conditions on farms may result in exposure to higher amounts of virus. The farms are being quarantined, and none have culled their animals, though many thousands of mink have now died of COVID-19. Published 1 June 2015 Last updated 27 September 2016 — see all updates. One mink-associated variant bears the same mutation as the coronavirus variant now spreading rapidly in the United Kingdom; each time such changes happen, there is a risk the virus changes in a way that could make it more dangerous and prolong the pandemic. Instead, their hunting skill causes the most frustration for humans. She said scientists don’t yet have all the answers for why some species get sicker than others. Originally from America, mink were brought to Britain to provide a ready supply of skins for the fur trade. Share this article via facebook Share this article via twitter Share this article via messenger. “I think we need them tested,” the vet said. Denmark first realised that a strain of coronavirus had come from mink in June after an outbreak of the disease at a care home. Poulsen’s lab is part of a national network of veterinary labs that work on animal diseases, and they had “been watching COVID-19 very carefully,” Poulsen told me. The Armed Forces, the Danish Emergency Management Agency, and the Home Guard are now being deployed to kill the country’s mink population. from Yale in 2019. Though the United States mink industry has shrunk along with Americans’ waning appetites for fur coats and the festival is no more, Wisconsin is still the country’s biggest producer of mink pelts. In addition to contributing to Forbes, I work as a reporter in Utah. It used to be thought that mink displaced otters and were part of the reason for the otters’ decline. I’m a science contributor writing about animals for Forbes.com. For example, over the course of several nights a mink can completely wipe out a Koi pond. Scientists say the mass mink casualties can be attributed to the animals’ natural susceptibility to the virus and the large number of minks kept in close proximity on farms. In addition to all of the ways mustelid physiology makes them similarly predisposed to the malady as humans, mink on farms are housed closely together. “One small silver lining is that most animals seem to have little to no disease themselves and so far, mink are the exception and not the rule,” said Sawatzki. I cover topics like new biology research and scientific explainers on viral animal stories. America’s leading expert on infectious disease said a mutated version of the coronavirus found in Denmark’s mink farms does not appear to have derailed hopes for a vaccine. ), But Ilaria Capua, a veterinarian and virologist who recently authored a paper on the possibility of a COVID-19 panzootic—the spread of a disease among animals across a large region or globally—is worried that the levels of infection in Asia were high enough that some mink were likely infected. Respiratory viruses replicate so readily in minks and their mustelid relatives (ferrets, most notably) that the animals are often used to study human illnesses. Then there’s the cost of testing. The ACE2 receptors could be one of the differences that the virus is adapting to, she said. Such mutations can affect the spread of the virus among humans; one, known as D614G, emerged in February and became the dominant strain of COVID-19 globally, perhaps because it traveled more easily among humans. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Mink appear to be susceptible to the new virus and “good reservoirs” for the virus, the WHO said on Thursday. Find out how to solve a pest problem with foxes, moles and mink in order to protect your property or business. The species found in Ireland is the American Mink which is bigger than the European Mink. To date, COVID-19 has been found on mink farms in a total of nine countries, including Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Greece, and—just two weeks ago—Canada. Others — including humans, cats and minks — seem to be more vulnerable. Gases built up in their bodies, propelling them to rise, luridly, from the ground. “Let’s put it this way,”  Capua said. A mutated variant of the coronavirus has begun to spread among mink in Denmark. Explore the latest articles from around the globe. “Our impression is that farms are highly at risk due to the large numbers of susceptible animals in the farms,” he said. Besides carrying fleas and ticks, the mink is an occasional carrier of distemper, influenza, astrovirus, Aleutian mink virus, transmissible mink encephalopathy and Mink Viral Eneritis. Even though only a small percentage of minks might die from Covid-19, the sheer number of cases on farms leads to a lot of deaths. Kaitlin Sawatzki, a researcher studying Covid-19 in animals at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, said research she is working on suggests there are two viral mutations of Covid-19 that are advantageous to infection in minks and ferrets but not humans. As an introduced predator, mink have had an adverse impact on the native biodiversity of the Western Isles and in other parts of Scotland. But the mink outbreak raises another fear—if the coronavirus escapes into the wild mink population, COVID-19 could become an entrenched and uncontrolled animal disease, wreaking havoc on animal communities and probably also occasionally infecting people. “This is just one more industry that can’t really afford it,” Poulsen said. In Europe, mink on fur farms were catching COVID-19. The variant has mutations in the spike protein, which the virus uses to invade host cells, and has been named “Cluster 5.” It infected at least a dozen people associated with mink farms in northern Denmark from August to September. Farmed mink have proved to provide absolutely excellent conditions for the virus to be fruitful and multiply. The Mink is a member of the weasel family. Photograph by Diego Azubel, EPA/Redux. Anna Paul Saturday 7 Nov 2020 11:47 am. Minks do relatively little property damage to the areas where they hunt, since they often reuse dens abandoned by other animals. “If the virus spills over into wild mustelids, then you lose track of it.”. In the UK, the water vole has been in decline since the beginning of the 20th century, due to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. You may opt-out by. There, a person can live in the neighborhood of “Mink Capital Terrace” or on a road called “Mink Drive.” A generation ago, a Medford girl could have aspired to be crowned Mink Princess U.S.A. at the annual Medford Mink Festival. I received a Psychology B.S. Like people, they get seasonal respiratory issues. Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera Neovison and Mustela, and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters and ferrets.There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the American mink and the European mink.The extinct sea mink is related to the American mink but was much larger. It’s another blow to the contracting mink business. The mink farms provide a “perfect storm” for the virus because minks are vulnerable to Covid-19, and thousands are kept in close proximity, said Weese. Soon a second Medford-area mink ranch reported cases. Some animals, like cows and pigs, seem resistant to Covid-19. Plus, some people on the ranch had COVID-like symptoms. The mink variant turned out not as bad as feared — but the next one could be worse. For nearly a year, the coronavirus has spread with little check through the places where humans live and work, but the growth of the pandemic among mink poses additional threats. (It's not yet clear whether the mutation is responsible for the speed, or coincident with it.) As of December 3, a total of 644 people associated with mink farms had contracted COVID-19 since June, along with another 338 people who work in mink pelting, according to a World Health Organization report that came out before the news of Canada’s outbreak, where an additional eight people on a mink farm have been sickened. And they seemed to be able to pass it back to people. Fur farmers there face few regulations, and there are no animal welfare laws to protect the animals. 2 Identify Areas of Damage. Mink are extremely vulnerable to respiratory disease. Researchers initially speculated that the mutations in the mink variant could make a vaccine less effective, but the little information available so far on human-to-human transmission suggests that these particular variants aren’t more infectious or more deadly, and won’t interfere with the vaccine.. It gives the virus a chance to pass from an environment humans ostensibly control to one that they don’t. Since mink are usually nocturnal and secretive, they are not easily seen unless the food they seek is active and only available during the day. Ireland, which is home to only three mink farms, previously had voted down a bill to end mink farming, but has now decided to cull its farmed mink population preemptively, likely ending the industry in the country. To avoid further contamination, mink farmers must compost the dead bodies, as well as any used feed and fecal matter. One reason that mink cause such a problem for the species is that female and young mink are small and agile enough to follow a water vole into its burrow. Let’s not make the same mistake with other animals.”, The Pandemic’s Deadly Winter Surge Is Rapidly Easing, How Dementia Locks People Inside Their Pain, perhaps because it traveled more easily among humans. Why is this Mink-Covid a problem? Cow Kowtowing in Sri Lanka. Social distancing is out of the question, and transmission is all but guaranteed. When you have a wild population, that’s impossible; you can’t stop them all,” Poulsen said. When Poulsen picked up the phone, the veterinarian for the Medford-area mink ranches told him that several hundred mink had already died. “If you have a major mortality problem, you’re losing a significant amount of profitability. This is why Covid-19 is primarily a respiratory disease. “We realized the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 in a new animal population—Homo sapiens—when it was too late. The spillover had happened. However this decline accelerated sharply throughout the 1960s and 1970s, coinciding with the spread of American mink in the wild. Poland, where undercover footage from the country’s largest mink farm appeared to show animals cannibalizing each other, is expected to soon follow suit. After the mink in Wisconsin tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, what followed “happened really, really fast,” Poulsen said. Like people, they get seasonal respiratory issues. (The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has not released the names of the ranches.) Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus, I’m a science contributor writing about animals for Forbes.com. The USDA says there is “currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is circulating or has been established in wild populations surrounding the infected mink farms.” Several other wild animals in the vicinity were sampled, but they tested negative. Globe Trek 01/01/2021 20 Read Article. Mink farming in numbers Farmed mink is the single most important fur type produced in North America today, in terms of the number of pelts produced and the value of the fur. A wild mink, trapped just outside a mink farm in Utah where there was a COVID-19 outbreak, tested positive. The WHO and European Commission have been alerted to this mutation. The US, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden have now reported coronavirus cases linked to mink farms after a mutation spreading from the animals was found in Denmark. That interpretation was shared by Wim van der Poel, the lead researcher on emerging and zoonotic viruses at Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands. The U.K. variant emerged more recently and has spread quickly as well. Even though only … I’m a science contributor writing about animals for Forbes.com. This variant shares a mutation with one found in minks; a missing bit of genetic code helps these viruses guard against antibodies that otherwise can fight back. Around 11 a.m. on a Friday in October, Poulsen got the call he’d been expecting for months. Mink in Medford were sick, and it looked a lot like COVID-19. Leftovers from a kill are often kept in the mink's den for later. The virus has also been transmitted from mink to humans, and so far, twelve people have been diagnosed with the mutated virus.