On March 6, 2020, a sexagenarian Utahn, who returned to the east
shore of the Great Salt Lake after vacationing on the
coronavirus-haunted Grand Princess cruise ship, tested positive for
COVID-19. It was the pandemic’s first knock on Utah’s door.
Then-Governor Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency on the same
day. In the following months, COVID-19 would spread to over 300,000
people in the state and wreak havoc on at least 12,000 minks, the
discreet, short-legged, fluffy mammals known for their colorful,
luxurious pelts.
The country’s first cases in mink were confirmed in mid-August, when
two employees working at Utah fur farms infected five minks. Suspecting
spillover of the virus to wildlife, researchers with the United States
Department of Agriculture began to screen wildlife for COVID-19 in
proximity to fur farm outbreaks. In December, their worry was confirmed:
A wild mink, trapped just outside of a farm tested positive.
The mink was “asymptomatic” and “humanely euthanized upon capture to
allow for tissue sampling and testing,” Gail Keirn, a spokesperson for
the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service told High Country News
by email. At this time, researchers are not concerned that COVID-19
will decimate wild mink populations because their solitary lifestyles
provide limited opportunity for one to spread the virus to others.
COVID-19 blew the fur business in the West last year. Data from the
USDA shows that multi-generation farms in Utah, Idaho and Oregon yielded
more than a third of nearly 3 million mink-pelt products made in the
country in 2019. But the industry’s production has declined since its
peak in 2014, and pelts grown in the United States have plunged by more
than a quarter.
Compounding that challenge on mink farmers, at least 12 of the more
than 30 mink farms in Utah have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks since
last August.
In a late December statement, Utah’s Department of Agriculture and Food said
COVID-19 wiped out nearly half of the breeding herds in the facilities.
In Oregon, one of its 11 fur farms was quarantined after an outbreak
sickened minks and humans. Among the three escaped minks, two tested
positive for the coronavirus. Environmental organizations have since
argued for the infected plant’s closure. “It’s clear that this facility
poses too great of a threat to wildlife and public health to continue
operating,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the
Center for Biological Diversity.
In Denmark and the Netherlands, minks contracted the virus and passed
it on to people, leading to millions of minks culled and farms shut
down permanently. Danish public health authorities also warned
that some variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,
contained mutations from the country’s fur farm outbreaks. No
mink-to-human transmissions have been reported in the United States. But
scientists fear rampant spread, like those in Utah, and further
mutations could jeopardize vaccines.
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