In January of 2022, New York Times reporter, Sonia Shah, conducted a harrowing undercover investigation that highlighted the growing coronavirus risks presented by mink fur farms in the United States. Minks are small, semi-aquatic, fur-bearing animals that naturally occur in most of the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe and Russia. They are wild animals bred in captivity for their pelts. Currently, at least 250 fur farms operate across 21 states in the United States alone, which collectively generate approximately three million pelts per year. Minks are usually killed via anal electrocution, cervical dislocation, or gassing, in order to make clothing and accessories out of their fur.
Fur Farms Are Animal Welfare Nightmares
With little meaningful regulation dictating standards of care or attempts made to monitor conditions, fur farms demonstrate extremely poor animal welfare practices; mink are often kept in completely barren caging, sometimes stacked on top of one another, just 1’ X 1’ X 3’ in size. While this setup allows farmers to maximize the number of minks they can have in a limited amount of space, minks may be consequently showered with urine and feces from those living above, which results in incredibly unsanitary housing conditions that exacerbate the rate of disease spread. Farmed mink are not covered under the Animal Welfare Act or the Humane Slaughter Act; therefore, almost no requirements mandating veterinary care, killing method, or housing stipulations exist.
Fur Farms Are Ticking Time-Bombs for COVID-19
The rapid spread of COVID-19 infections at mink farms across Europe (Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and Lithuania) and throughout North America (Canada, Utah, Oregon, Michigan, and Wisconsin) beginning in 2020 made the timing of this investigation all the more pertinent. COVID-19 can be transferred between mink and from mink to humans; including those virus variants that mutate and jump separately within mink populations. Even variants of coronavirus that mutated separately within mink farms turned up in Europe and the United States in people who have no direct connection to mink farming. In the United States, there is evidence of COVID-19 antibodies in white-tailed deer and wild mink.
Since its emergence on mink farms, COVID-19 has resulted in the deaths of millions of minks around the world. In Denmark alone, 17 million minks from more than 200 fur farms were killed in 2020 in attempts to stop the rapid virus spread. In the Netherlands, the government closed off streets near fur farms, required screenings of all animals and quarantining of those that tested positive, banned the transport of mink and mink waste, and implemented the use of Personal Protective Equipment on farms throughout the country. Still, none of these efforts quelled the virus spread. With mounting public safety concerns following the continued rapid spread of COVID-19 via mink farms, several European countries made plans to ban fur farming altogether, including Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Estonia.
Upon entering one of the thirteen sheds at a mink farm in northern Utah, Shah described her first observations:
Inside the shed, the still air was dense with flies. On either side, rows of wire cages stacked waist high contained the intertwined bodies of mink. Most were silently prostrate on their backs, their paws limp in the air, passed out in the nearly 100-degree heat. Mink waste piled up under their cages in low, long ridges.
When Shah asked the fur farmer, who stood in the mink shed unmasked, how his mink fared during the first pandemic surge, he responded with this sentiment:
“We may have had a few mink die that might have been from the Covid… we didn’t think it was anything, so we didn’t test them.”
Although a vaccine is available for mink, the fur farmer allegedly refused to vaccinate his approximately 13,000 animals. Notably, the vaccine would not prevent infection or transmission, but would rather function to help minimize the severity of the symptoms associated with the virus; similar to the vaccine effects observed in humans.
The Threat of “Spillback”
Shah goes on to summarize the critical effects that COVID-19 has had on both captive and wild mink populations. “Spillback” refers to the transfer of pathogens from humans to nonhuman animals. While the devastation caused by COVID-19 among captive mink cannot be overstated, the “spillback” or “reverse zoonosis” effects on wild mink populations are cause for extreme concern regarding the future for the conservation status of wild mink.
“Spillback” becomes particularly problematic in the case of mink fur farms, where the opportunistic minks often escape and spread any diseases previously contained to farms to other animal species, even domesticated pets in backyards. These hazards were made even more clear to Shah when she visited multiple fur farms throughout Utah, where little to no biohazard precautions were taken to limit contamination from mink waste; relatively no proper Personal Protective Equipment was observed; and virtually no structurally sound fencing existed around farm perimeters.
With its spread uncontrolled, “spillback” has the potential to cause major population declines in more animals than just mink, imbalance entire ecosystems, and potentially lead to the evolution of an even deadlier virus that could later transfer back to humans and become an unimaginably worse nightmare than the COVID-19 strains already recognized in humans. Some scientists suggest that “spillback” may explain the extremely contagious nature of the Omicron variant, and that the high number of mutations Omicron presents suggests that it may have developed these mutations by passing through a nonhuman host before infecting humans.
The amount of funding and ability to coordinate the separate systems responsible for analyzing the existence and prevalence of COVID-19 variants transmitted through animal vectors in the United States is, unfortunately, extremely limited. Despite the United States Department of Agriculture announcing a new $300 million program to be used for disease detection in wild and domesticated animals, these plans may not take full effect until the year 2023 or beyond.
Humans Are Part of the Animal Kingdom, whether We Admit It or Not
One of the main messages garnered from Shah’s investigation asserts that humans remain part of the animal kingdom, no matter how separate we may feel from other animal species living just beyond city limits. The “barriers” constructed that theoretically separate humans from other animals are not quite as thick as we had previously assumed, with pathogens easily passing between our beings within shared environments. Throughout history, fatal viruses that originated from pathogens were transmitted between humans and animals numerous times, including the “cattle plague” and canine distemper. The distemper virus eventually made its way into captive mink populations, which spread rapidly worldwide through the international trade of mink and the use of a contaminated vaccine in the mid-twentieth century. The mass slaughter of minks was the response.
Having close contact encounters with animals, particularly wild animals, only increases the chances of harmful virus transferal which—by the very nature of the extreme ease with which COVID-19 is transmitted—further endangers public safety by orders of magnitude each time it mutates and transfers between species. Therefore, in addition to its already glaring animal welfare concerns, the farming of fur-bearing species must end from a public safety standpoint. The Netherlands already illustrated that establishing rules and mandating certain restrictions will never decrease the occurrence of potentially fatal viruses or mitigate the risks posed by fur farms. The risks are too costly to justify continuing farming mink, who are meant to be living free in the wild, for the production of outdated fashion items.
Born Free USA Fights Fur Farming
Jennifer Place, Born Free USA’s Director of Government Relations, provided the latest update on our fight against fur farming:
“Born Free USA is working hard with a coalition of organizations on draft legislation that would ban mink fur farming in the US and implement a grant program for fur farmers transitioning out of the industry. In the meantime, we are engaging the USDA and other agencies to implement better oversight of the industry. Most recently, we submitted a petition to list the mink as an injurious species under the Lacey Act, due to the risk of mink farms becoming reservoirs for COVID-19 variants.”
Stay tuned for new legislation as we continue to work on this issue and any other updates about how you can help our fight against fur farming!
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Devan
