ByAlixel Cabrera-October 1, 2026 5:03 am
The first case of avian flu in mink was diagnosed in Utah this summer. (Photo courtesy of Animal Wellness Action)
After reports of a bird flu outbreak at a mink farm in Utah emerged, animal welfare advocates are describing the state’s response to it as “dangerously lax.”
Details about the outbreak are still publicly unclear. A spokesperson for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food said that “due to the limited reach and ongoing nature of the outbreak, we are unable to answer some questions that are too specific about the case in order to protect the privacy of the producer.”
However, records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show seven cases of avian influenza among captive mink in Salt Lake County collected and confirmed in August — though the data may be incomplete, the agency said in its website. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.SUBSCRIBE
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, two advocacy groups, criticized the lack of information released to the public, including the mink population of the affected farm, whether there was mink-to-mink transmission of the virus, its source, or any worker exposure findings.
“This isn’t an obscure infection in an isolated wild animal,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, said in a news release. “It occurred among intensively confined mink, animals with a documented history of amplifying respiratory viruses and providing opportunities for viral evolution. Americans deserve to know what happened and what government found.”
In 2020, COVID-19 killed about 12,000 mink in Utah, one of the top mink producing states in the country.
The bird flu outbreak is the first of its kind documented in the country, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. The group found through a public records request to the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food that the affected farm was expecting to lose about 80% of its mink to the disease, and that officials were uncertain on the appropriate protocol to contain the virus.
Without a standard to quarantine the farm, an official said: “our only options at this point are to watch them die or get emergency vaccine approval.”
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Leon Page, a Utah Department of Agriculture and Food public information officer, said that because this is the first avian influenza outbreak in mink in the country, there isn’t an existing precedent for treatment or response.
“However, (Utah Department of Agriculture and Food) staff also do everything they can during the process to support producers and make sure that we maximize safety and minimize damage wherever we can,” he said.
But animal rights groups were not reassured.
“It only takes one unlucky mutation of this dangerous virus to trigger a human health crisis, and we can no longer ignore the threat posed by disease proliferation on mink farms,” Kate Dylewsky, assistant director of government affairs at the Animal Welfare Institute said in a release. “The failure of state and federal officials to prepare for this scenario, or to implement important biosecurity measures in response to the outbreak, demonstrates how mink farming operates with almost no oversight, compounding the threat to the public.”
The agency informed the Utah Department of Health and Human Services of the case while it investigated the possibility of transmission to humans, “which has not yet proven to be a high risk,” Page said. The department also issued a “verbal hold” to the facility rather than a legal quarantine, before officials continued their investigation.
Similar cases in other countries were solved through depopulation instead of quarantines, “so there is also little international precedent for a protocol that doesn’t immediately resort to depopulation,” he said.
The options the department has contemplated for the outbreak are depopulation, quarantine and vaccination, Page said. But the latter can only be approved by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, not by state departments.
“Because (avian flu) in mink is new to the US, research is limited, and there is little guidance for dosage or efficacy in mink specifically,” Page said. “If approved, the vaccine would be released to the state veterinarian and tracked closely by that office to ensure there was no diversion to poultry, dairy cattle, or other farms. USDA is having internal discussions on when they can or would allow vaccinations.”
Animal welfare groups criticize response to bird flu outbreak at Utah mink farm • Utah News Dispatch
