The B.C. government plans to shut down the entire mink farming industry, over concerns that mink farms can result in COVID-19 mutations being passed to humans.
B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham announced Friday that all mink farms will have to be shut down by 2025.
"This decision follows the recommendations of public health officials and infectious disease experts about managing the threat of the virus for workers at the farms and the broader public," Popham said in a press release.
"Our government will work with affected farmers and workers to help them pursue other farming, business or job opportunities that support their families."
There are nine mink farms in B.C.,. most of them concentrated in the Fraser Valley. The phase-out will occur in three stages:
- a permanent ban on breeding mink;
- a permanent ban on live mink on farms by April 2023; and
- all farms shut down and all pelts sold 2025
Mink are a member of the weasel family and are bred for their pelts in the making of furs.
The government is taking action against mink farms based on data from the BC Centre for Disease Control, which found the potential for the SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e COVID-19) to mutate in mink and then be passed onto people.
There are additional concerns that these mutated variants could reduce vaccine efficacy. As well, there are concerns that infected mink escaping from farms could spread the virus to other animals.
In July this year, mink were found infected by the virus on three farms, and in two of the farms, workers at the farms also tested positive. That resulted in a moratorium on new mink farms and a cap on the number of animals at existing ones.
"Public health has been monitoring and managing outbreaks related to mink farming along with the Ministry of Agriculture and WorkSafeBC, but as this remains an ongoing public health issue, we believe the risk is too great for operations to continue as they were," provincial health officer Bonnie Henry said.
"Public health supports government's decision to take this action at this time for the safety of the broader population."
The BC Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Animals (SPCA) began calling for a moratorium on mink farms in 2020, after several mink farm workers tested positive and roughly 200 mink died.
