Mink industry in Denmark
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The mink industry in Denmark produced 40 percent of the world's pelts. Denmark used to be the largest producer of mink skins in the world.[1][2] Ranked third in Denmark's agricultural export items of animal origin, fur and mink skins have a yearly export value of about €500 million. Kopenhagen Fur, located in Copenhagen, is the world's largest fur auction house; annually, it sells approximately 14 million Danish mink skins produced by 2,000 Danish fur farmers, and 7 million mink skins produced in other countries.[3] Mink produced in Denmark was considered to be the finest in the world and is ranked by grade, with the best being Saga Royal, followed by Saga, Quality 1, and Quality 2.[3][4]
In November 2020, a mutated strain of COVID-19 known as "cluster 5" was detected among minks, leading the Danish Government to order the culling of 17 million minks in order to prevent a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, thus temporarily ending the mink industry in Denmark.[5][6] Mink fur farming was made legal again in 2023.[7]
American mink (Neogale vison) were introduced as a farm animal in Denmark in the mid-1920s[8] – European mink (Mustela lutreola) have never been recorded in Denmark.[9] By the mid-1980s, Denmark was the second largest mink producer, behind the United States.[10] In 1983, it produced 8.3 million pelts, amounting to 22 percent of world production, and in 2002, it produced 12.2 million pelts, representing nearly 40 percent of world production.[11] Fur trade has been declared as one of the twenty nine "special competence clusters in Danish economic life" by the Ministry of Commerce in Denmark.[12]
COVID-19
In November 2020, a mutated strain of COVID-19 was found in the animals, resulting in the government ordering the culling of seventeen million mink because of a fear that they could be the catalyst for restarting the international pandemic. At least twelve people have been infected by the mink farm strain though hundreds of cases could be linked to it.[5] The new mutation is known as "cluster 5".[6] In November 2020, the Danish government announced that all remaining mink in Denmark would be culled by 16 November 2020.[13]
It was revealed in late November that the Minister for Agriculture, Mogens Jensen, and five other ministers had been made aware in September that the culling of the entire country's mink population, rather than just those in the infected areas, would be illegal. Facing calls for resignation from the parliamentary opposition and sharp public criticism,[14] Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that the order to cull all minks was illegal, and Jensen resigned on 18 November.[15] A deal was later reached to retroactively make the government's order legal.[16]
On 20 December 2020, the Danish Parliament passed a draft bill to ban mink farming until 2022.[17] Mink breeding became legal again in Denmark from 1 January 2023 onwards, and Icelandic mink are set to play a key role for Danish mink farmers.[7]
