why are mink a problem
Some animals seem to have receptors that are easier for the virus to attach to, he said. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. One reason that mink cause such a problem for the species is that female and young mink are small and agile enough to follow a water vole into its burrow. Around 11 a.m. on a Friday in October, Poulsen got the call he’d been expecting for months. In China, meanwhile, where about 8,000 mink farms hold roughly 5 million animals, the state has reported no COVID-19 cases among mink, either on farms or in the wild. Farmed mink have proved to provide absolutely excellent conditions for the virus to be fruitful and multiply. These differences can be explained in part by how the virus attacks cells, said Weese. First, my study showed that American mink on Navarino Island shows a high occupancy (number of surveyed sites with mink present) during the summer, occupying forested areas away from the shoreline or even streams. They do get infected, but the virus just doesn’t replicate very well in their system.”. Her paper is currently a pre-print, meaning it has not been peer reviewed. It gives the virus a chance to pass from an environment humans ostensibly control to one that they don’t. Farm workers on all mink farms are now advised to use personal protection gear. Such mutations can affect the spread of the virus among humans; one, known as D614G, emerged in February and became the dominant strain of COVID-19 globally, perhaps because it traveled more easily among humans. A wild mink, trapped just outside a mink farm in Utah where there was a COVID-19 outbreak, tested positive. The bodies of thousands of culled mink, buried in shallow graves, then proceeded to ferment. Mink are extremely vulnerable to respiratory disease. Why are mink a problem? The lab alerted the USDA, the state department of agriculture, the state department of public health, and a local public health official. He said scientists were worried about outbreaks in pigs but it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem. Find out how to solve a pest problem with foxes, moles and mink in order to protect your property or business. ), But Ilaria Capua, a veterinarian and virologist who recently authored a paper on the possibility of a COVID-19 panzootic—the spread of a disease among animals across a large region or globally—is worried that the levels of infection in Asia were high enough that some mink were likely infected. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. I cover topics like new biology research and scientific explainers on viral animal stories. To avoid further contamination, mink farmers must compost the dead bodies, as well as any used feed and fecal matter. Since early this summer, Keith Poulsen, the director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, was worried about mink. “Let’s put it this way,” Capua said. In the UK, the water vole has been in decline since the beginning of the 20th century, due to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. For nearly a year, the coronavirus has spread with little check through the places where humans live and work, but the growth of the pandemic among mink poses additional threats. The Netherlands had an outbreak in April; Danish mink farms quickly followed in June. 2 Identify Areas of Damage. As of December 8, COVID-19 cases had been confirmed at 16 mink farms in four states: 12 in Utah, one in Michigan, and one in Oregon, in addition to the two Wisconsin farms. By Sunday afternoon, the CDC had teams on the ground to interview ranch owners and take stock of the environment. Scientists say the mass mink casualties can be attributed to the animals’ natural susceptibility to the virus and the large number of minks kept in close proximity on farms. Efforts to ban fur farming, often in response to campaigns led by animal rights activists, are now accelerating. When you have a wild population, that’s impossible; you can’t stop them all,” Poulsen said. “If you have a major mortality problem, you’re losing a significant amount of profitability. 62 animal tests cost $3,000, which is a big deal to a farm that just suffered losses of tens of thousands of dollars,” Poulsen said. (It's not yet clear whether the mutation is responsible for the speed, or coincident with it.) Mink are an occasional menace in pheasant release pens, where they can kill large numbers of birds, and this can be a very costly loss. Published 1 June 2015 Last updated 27 September 2016 — see all updates. And Medford is still a mink town; there are 12 mink ranches in the area, within five miles of one another—and the coronavirus has now reached two of them. Once the coronavirus finds mink, it works fast. Denmark first realised that a strain of coronavirus had come from mink in June after an outbreak of the disease at a care home. Scientists don’t know why mink in particular seem to get very sick, but the crowded, caged conditions on farms may result in exposure to higher amounts of virus. Share this article via facebook Share this article via twitter Share this article via messenger. By October, the situation was gruesome: Hundreds of mink farms in Denmark and the Netherlands had COVID-19 cases, and two farms in Utah had reported the first U.S. cases in mink. You may opt-out by. That interpretation was shared by Wim van der Poel, the lead researcher on emerging and zoonotic viruses at Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands. (The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has not released the names of the ranches.) 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As of December 3, a total of 644 people associated with mink farms had contracted COVID-19 since June, along with another 338 people who work in mink pelting, according to a World Health Organization report that came out before the news of Canada’s outbreak, where an additional eight people on a mink farm have been sickened. In Europe, the already-shrinking mink industry is now quickly crumbling. Occupancy dropped during the winter, with animals concentrating more closely to the shoreline during the spring. In addition to all of the ways mustelid physiology makes them similarly predisposed to the malady as humans, mink on farms are housed closely together. Let’s not make the same mistake with other animals.”, The Pandemic’s Deadly Winter Surge Is Rapidly Easing, How Dementia Locks People Inside Their Pain, perhaps because it traveled more easily among humans. The mink variant turned out not as bad as feared — but the next one could be worse. “Cows don’t allow the virus to enter their cells quite as easy. “We were just waiting,” says Dr. John Easley, a mink specialist who serves as a veterinarian for mink ranches in southern Wisconsin. For example, over the course of several nights a mink can completely wipe out a Koi pond. As an introduced predator, mink have had an adverse impact on the native biodiversity of the Western Isles and in other parts of Scotland. “This is just one more industry that can’t really afford it,” Poulsen said. However, an equally harmful predator lurks in the wings for many poultry keepers, and while mink numbers are reported to be falling, the danger remains a serious one. Leftovers from a kill are often kept in the mink's den for later. “I think we need them tested,” the vet said. France announced it would ban farming mink by 2025. Like people, they get seasonal respiratory issues. China’s mink farmers say they are benefiting from the Danish mink cull; Wang He, a Shangcun trader and breeder, told Reuters his earnings increased 30 to 50 percent when the price of mink fur jumped after Denmark ordered the cull. However, mink are not known to be aggressive towards humans. Mink are active in most every state except one or two in the southwestern region of the United States. There, a person can live in the neighborhood of “Mink Capital Terrace” or on a road called “Mink Drive.” A generation ago, a Medford girl could have aspired to be crowned Mink Princess U.S.A. at the annual Medford Mink Festival. “There’s no money to do that on the federal or state level, so that’s all on the farm.”. My love of. Though the United States mink industry has shrunk along with Americans’ waning appetites for fur coats and the festival is no more, Wisconsin is still the country’s biggest producer of mink pelts. The ACE2 receptors could be one of the differences that the virus is adapting to, she said. Mink appear to be susceptible to the new virus and “good reservoirs” for the virus, the WHO said on Thursday. The strain was “indistinguishable” from that of the farm outbreak. It is their impact on other wildlife species – notably water voles - that has proved the greatest cause of concern. Plus, some people on the ranch had COVID-like symptoms. That is why a state advisory committee of health care experts in January recommended that an estimated 300 mink farm workers be included in the next phase of the vaccine rollout. And as it spreads among mink, and between minks and humans, and between humans and humans, it can mutate; it already has. from Yale in 2019. “It comes down to the susceptibility of the species and the chance of the virus to spread around,” he said. Soon a second Medford-area mink ranch reported cases. Then there’s the cost of testing. In Europe, mink on fur farms were catching COVID-19. Although there is evidence that different ACE2 receptors influence vulnerability to Covid-19, scientists aren’t able to predict with certainty how different species will respond. Since then, the global mink situation has significantly worsened. The damage mink have done to our wildlife has been enormous, with water voles, moorhens, kingfishers and our endangered white-clawed crayfish being among the worst casualties. My love of animals was fostered by growing up with goats, dogs, cats, geese, horses and chickens. “We realized the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 in a new animal population—Homo sapiens—when it was too late. And they seemed to be able to pass it back to people. It is possible that the specific virus killing the minks would be less suited to attacking humans. Mink in Medford were sick, and it looked a lot like COVID-19. Latest Articles. Weese said animals have more ACE2 receptors receptors in their lungs than in other parts of their body. I’m a science contributor writing about animals for Forbes.com. The variant has mutations in the spike protein, which the virus uses to invade host cells, and has been named “Cluster 5.” It infected at least a dozen people associated with mink farms in northern Denmark from August to September. I cover topics like new biology research and scientific explainers on viral animal stories. “I am just concerned that we are not looking well enough,” she told me. Mink will forage several acres to find food and if you keep free roam chicken, they will be targeted. If 10,000 cats were raised in a colony, there would likely be a lot of sick cats and a reasonable number of dead ones, he said. Medford, a city of just more than 4,000 people in north-central Wisconsin, used to call itself the mink capital of the world. Problems caused by mink. Globe Trek 01/01/2021 20 Read Article. America’s leading expert on infectious disease said a mutated version of the coronavirus found in Denmark’s mink farms does not appear to have derailed hopes for a vaccine. The Armed Forces, the Danish Emergency Management Agency, and the Home Guard are now being deployed to kill the country’s mink population. This variant shares a mutation with one found in minks; a missing bit of genetic code helps these viruses guard against antibodies that otherwise can fight back. But in some cases, the animals can develop severe interstitial pneumonia. Cow Kowtowing in Sri Lanka. Mink at more than 200 of the almost 1,200 fur farms in Denmark have been infected with coronavirus. The WHO and European Commission have been alerted to this mutation.
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