Dutch authorities started slaughtering more than 1,500 mink on a farm on Saturday where cases of Covid-19 have been reported in small mammals after a judge dismissed a petitioners' request the day before.
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Unsuccessful associations before the courts
The Ministry of Agriculture announced Wednesday to slaughter "more than 10,000 mink" of farms where cases of new coronavirus have been found, to prevent them from becoming sources of contamination. Two animal rights groups seized Dutch court on Thursday to try to prevent the measure, but their request was dismissed Friday evening.
The slaughter of animals therefore "started today (Saturday) in a mink farm in Deurne" in the south of the Netherlands, said Frederique Hermie, a spokesperson for the security agency. food and health (NVWA). "This company has about 1,500 females, each of which has four to five pups," Hermie told AFP, adding that the animals are killed using carbon monoxide. The mink slaughter in the nine other contaminated farms will continue during the week, she said.
Farms closed by 2024
Authorities established in May that two workers at these farms "most likely" contracted Covid-19 through minks.These two plausible cases of Dutch contamination by mink could be the "first known cases of transmission" of the new coronavirus from animals to humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
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The government subsequently banned the transport of these animals and made Covid-19 testing compulsory in all mink farms in the Netherlands, where they are reared for their fur. In 2016, the country's highest court ordered the closure of mink farms by 2024.