A week ago the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced at a press conference the decision to kill the country's entire mink population - that is millions of minks - to prevent a mutated Coronavirus from being passed to humans.
Kåre Mølbak, Head of the State Serum Institute, the authority controlling infectious diseases, explained that a mutation in the novel Coronavirus that infected the animals could interfere with the effectiveness of a vaccine for humans (so far 12 people in its Jutland region are known to have it). The mutations occurred in the spike protein on the virus' surface, the part of the virus that infects healthy cells and Coronavirus vaccines are designed to disable the spike protein, but such vaccines may not provide protection against the new virus.
Minks can easily get infected with COVID-19 and the virus spreads quickly as well in farms as the animals are kept in crowded conditions. As a consequence, Denmark also had to establish tougher lockdown measures in the north part of the country where most mink farms are located.
Mink infections also occurred in other countries, such as The Netherlands and the US but, while in Denmark the virus appeared to have been passed from humans to mink and back to humans, in other countries authorities didn't report this occurrence (the Dutch government killed the mink populations on 68 mink farms in June anyway and announced the intention to permanently close the sites from the spring of 2021). Viruses usually mutate and, while COVID-19 is not mutating as fast as other related viruses, the reason of concern is the fact that in the case of the Danish mink population, the mutation was able to jump back at humans after mutating.
Yet, while many scientists are studying how Coronavirus spreads from humans to animals and among animals such as pets and wild animals (there are concerns in particular about the virus passing from one species to the other and the way it may mutate in this passage), some critics expressed concerns about the decision of the Danish government as not much is known about the virus mutation.
After previous Coronavirus outbreaks, over 1 million minks were killed at 400 farms that recorded infections or were based near infected farms. The cull policy raised issues about its cost (€800m; the armed forces also had to be involved in such a huge operation) and raised some confusions when, after political opposition to the cull emerged, on Monday Denmark's Prime Minister admitted the cull was illegal (as the mass culling should have been a recommendation rather than an order), even though it had already begun and the official tally of culled mink stood already at over 2 million animals.
There will obviously be compensation for affected farmers (there are over 1,100 mink farms in Denmark, most of them family businesses passed from generation to generation), but there are questions about the future of mink furs. The mink industry employs over 4,000 people in Denmark and the country is Europe's biggest producer and exporter of milk pelts, the third-biggest agricultural export of the country. Culling the mink population would therefore also deal a major blow to the entire industry, so this decision may have heavy consequences on the country's economy and on fashion as well.
Fur coats and jackets by prominent fashion houses are still considered coveted luxury products (a mink coat by Louis Vuitton will set you back over €30,000; a jacket around €8,000), while fur is often employed to add a touch of luxury to accessories including handbags, gloves and hats, or for trimmings and cuffs on coats, and fur sales are still strong in some key markets such as China, Russia, South Korea and the US.
At the same time, in the last few years many designer labels – from Gucci and Chanel to Armani and Prada, just to mention some of them – announced they will be going fur-free (even the historical fur house Fendi opted to reduce its use of animal hides). Besides, many fashion fans have switched onto vegan leathers and faux furs (even though most of these synthetic materials aren't necessarily sustainable, so they may represent causes of concern for other reasons...).
The cull in Denmark spells disaster for the local industry and for mink farmers, while designers who usually incorporate mink fur in their designs will have to look for other options. So, as an indirect consequence of Coronavirus, we may soon start seeing a final transformation in fashion with fewer mink designs in fashion collections and maybe the end of mink farming, a solution advocated already in pre-Coronavirus times by animal rights activists.
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