Dutch fur farms ordered to cull 10,000 mink amid Covid outbreak

These fur farms were ordered to cull 10,000 mink over concerns that animals infected with coronavirus could transmit it to humans.

Transcript

00:30Any environment that keeps animals in such appallingly intensive farming conditions as

00:37they're kept on fur farms has the potential to act as a breeding ground for infectious

00:42zoonotic diseases like coronaviruses. The animals are kept so close together they really

00:48quickly pass diseases amongst themselves. In the case of mink they are not domesticated

00:53so they're really difficult to handle and provide veterinary care to.

01:09Scientists and politicians are very rightly concerned that even if they can get the human

01:14to human transmission of Covid-19 under control that the virus could remain in a reservoir

01:21in the fur farms and then have the potential to reinfect people at a later date.

01:51Of course that this is a terrible tragedy but the real tragedy is that these animals

01:57were there in the first place. They'd been born from the very first day, they were destined

02:03to be gassed to death, to be turned into a pointless trim on a coat or hat or bag. So

02:10their lives were always going to be wasted.

02:25This latest evidence coming out of the Netherlands that shows that fur farms actually present

02:30a human health risk as well as an animal welfare problem really means that the government should

02:36speed up that phase out as quickly as possible and make sure that this season of mink are

02:42the last mink that have to suffer appalling lives on Dutch fur farms.