Maeve Cullinan
Wed, September 2, 2026 at 6:17 AM PDT
3 min read
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H5N1 has been detected on a US mink farm for the first time, igniting fears the infected animals could present a human pandemic risk.
The bird flu virus, which has “jumped” from birds to numerous mammal species and infected hundreds of people in recent years, was detected in at least six mink on a farm in Utah in mid-August, according to a notification from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released over the weekend.
Mink in captivity have previously been described as pandemic “time bombs”. The size and density of the farms gives invading viruses a perfect environment in which to mutate. Mink also have strikingly similar respiratory systems to humans, which greatly increases the human risk.
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The animals are farmed for their fur, which is then typically exported to fashion manufacturers in China, Hong Kong, and Russia and used in items like coats and scarves.
Scientists have long warned that if H5N1 acquires the ability to spread efficiently between people, it could trigger a human pandemic.
“Avian influenza viruses tend to replicate pretty poorly in humans and don’t really have the right sort of properties that allow them to transmit from person to person.
“If H5N1 were to cause a pandemic, it would need to make quite a lot of changes, and there’s a real concern that mink, particularly farmed mink, have a lot of the features that could drive the evolution of H5N1,” Dr Tom Peacock, a virologist at The Pirbright Institute, told The Telegraph.
In 2022, an outbreak of H5N1 on a mink farm in Galicia, Spain, infected more than 50,000 animals and marked the first documented evidence of mammal-to-mammal transmission of the virus.
While all the animals were swiftly culled, scientists at the time worried that if the virus had ‘jumped’ back into humans in contact with the sick mink, it could have begun to spread in the same way between people.
The worry is not entirely theoretical.
During the pandemic, several mutated strains of Covid-19 were found circulating on fur farms in countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Greece and Latvia.
Denmark reported at least 12 farm workers infected with a rare strain of Covid-19 that had emerged in mink and subsequently spread to humans. While the strain was no more lethal than other variants of Covid-19, it was found to be less responsive to the vaccine.
It is in part for this reason, along with a general decline in demand for real animal fur, that most mink farms in Europe have now been closed or are being phased out.
Britain shut down its remaining fur farms as early as 2003.
The US, however, has no federal law outlawing mink farming, and several states, including Utah, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, operate dozens of mink farms, each typically housing between 10,000 and 12,000 mink at once.
In total, the US mink industry produces roughly 1.3 million pelts every year, sold overwhelmingly to fashion manufacturers in China.
In light of the recent infections, campaigners in the US – who argue that mink farms are exceptionally cruel places where thousands of the animals are closely packed together in small, wired cages – are calling for the USDA to prohibit mink farming to protect both animals and public health.
Born Free USA, an animal advocacy charity, has called on the government to phase out mink farming over a one year period, which would involve establishing a grant programme to reimburse mink farmers for the full value of their farm before eventually outlawing the practice.
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