1 day ago
By Wayne Pacelle
Lead Image Source : Katvic/Shutterstock
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For the first time in Congressional history, the U.S. House is taking up a bill to ban a category of factory farming of animals for food or fiber. It’s an amendment, offered by Representatives Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, to ban mink farming in the United States.
Animal advocates concerned about the cruelty of factory farms and the frivolity of fur should take action today. The vote is imminent.
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Mink farming and SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-2 is, by and large, a virus that affects two species: humans (Homo sapiens) and American mink (Neovison vison).
Public health authorities tracking the progression of the COVID-19 virus in humans estimate 10 percent of 7.8 billion people in the world have been infected. There has been a parallel progression of the virus in mink, with infected mink farmworkers passing the virus to captive mink on fur farms.
In North America and Europe, there have been approximately six to seven million mink infected with SARS-CoV-2, with approximately 675,000 dying from the virus. That’s more than 10 percent of the global population of about 60 million mink kept in factory farms from Utah and New Brunswick to Denmark and Finland to Russia and China.
These startling numbers contrast with perhaps just 100-500 known COVID-19 infections among all other non-human animals, including big cats, domesticated dogs and cats, White-tailed deer, gorillas, and ferrets. Perhaps more importantly, there has been no spill-back from these other species. They appear to be dead-end hosts, while humans and mink are bilateral spreaders of the virus.
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Mink farms have already spawned three variants – in Denmark, France, and the United States.
Cruelty and Contagions
If SARS-CoV-2 could design its perfect habitat, it might closely resemble a mink factory farm: highly stressed, immuno-suppressed inbred hosts with thousands of other such potential hosts kept in very small cages. This environment maximizes chances for intraspecific aggression, viral infections, and mutations.
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Denmark’s mass shutdown of its industry in 2020 – requiring the abrupt gassing of 17 million mink – was the first major act of animal disaster response, after SARS-CoV-2 infected hundreds of farms and a variant started ricocheting through the Scandinavian nation. Netherlands followed and killed its four million mink as a COVID-19 containment strategy.
Over time, nearly 20 nations in Europe have decided that mink farms must go.
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Inaction by U.S. Could Cause U.S. Mink Farms to Surge in Number
If Europe bans these mink farms, and the United States fails to act, then we might see the U.S. mink farming industry, which has been in steady decline, rise again.
Mink are wild, solitary, territorial, and aggressive carnivores. Housing them in groups in small cages is a prescription for aggression and even cannibalism. There are kept in these tight quarters for a maximum lifespan of eight months, with less powerful and aggressive animals especially vulnerable.
A small number of farmers continue to cram these uniquely vulnerable non-human carnivores on factory farms to generate a luxury product that few people want or need and that generates negligible income for a few dozen farmers. Eighty percent of all of the pelts go to a thin strata of luxury consumers in China, yet Americans in our homeland face the startlingly dangerous disease and ecological risks presented by these live-wildlife fur producers.
Please call your U.S. Representative today by clicking here and urging them to vote “YES” on the DeLauro-Mace-DeFazio amendment to ban mink farming.
It’s time to pass the MINKS Are Superspreaders Act!Click Here to Sign Petition
Wayne Pacelle is a New York Times bestselling author and President of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. He has led efforts to pass 1,500 state laws for animals, more than 100 federal laws and amendments, 30 ballot initiatives, and 500 corporate agreements. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Related Content:
- It’s time to pass the MINKS Are Superspreaders Act!
- Italy Bans Fur Farming and Mink Farms
- French Parliament Votes to Ban Wild Animal Circuses and Mink Farms
- 10 Adorable Minks That Will Convince You to Go Fur-Free!
- Shocking New Footage of Animals Suffering on a Polish Fur Farm
- Here are the Innocent Faces of the Cruel Fur Industry
- Mink on Wisconsin Fur Farm Test Positive for COVID-19
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on The Extinction Chronicles.
I think its time for another, more potent Virus to rid the Earth of this species.
Bird flu is waiting its turn…
Oh, good! Our species needs to go before we blow up the Earth with Nukes.