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Killed mink in Næstved in November 2020: From the point of view of the health authorities, their breeding is safe again
Photo:
Mads Claus Rasmussen / dpa
Is the Danish fur industry making a comeback?
The country's government has now decided that it will not extend the ban imposed because of the corona crisis in 2020, but will let it expire at the end of the year.
This is according to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The decision is based on an assessment by the Statens Serum Institut.
It believes that mink farming now poses a limited risk to public health.
In November 2020, the Danish government ordered the killing of all farmed mink, affecting up to 17 million animals.
The move was intended to prevent the spread of a mutated form of the coronavirus that can be transmitted to humans.
The decisive factor for the current decision was that the health authorities considered the resumption of mink production in Denmark to be harmless, said the Social Democratic Minister of Agriculture Rasmus Prehn.
Sender: Only a few breeders are becoming active again
The step could also play into the hands of the Social Democrats and at least take the wind out of the sails of the conservative opposition in the looming election campaign.
The so-called blue bloc, which was ahead in polls recently, has been calling for mink breeding to be legalized again for a long time.
Prehn's government - above all Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen - was under pressure for a long time in the scandal, partly because there was initially no legal basis for the killing and this was only created afterwards.
The Minister responsible at the time, Mogens Jensen, resigned.
Frederiksen, who heads a minority government, was reprimanded in parliament, and her department head, Barbara Bertelsen, was warned this summer after a commission had dealt with the matter.
Although mink farming will now be legal again, only a few breeders are likely to return to work, according to broadcaster TV2.
The majority of breeders have opted for a set-aside premium as part of the compensation scheme - instead of the option of keeping mink again in the future.
The times when Denmark, especially with the company Copenhagen Fur, was the world market leader in the fur trade seem to be over for good.
Things went wrong in Denmark, and not only with the hasty killing of the mink.
The carcasses, which were hastily buried in pits, threatened to pollute the groundwater.
In some cases, they were not buried deep enough, so that decomposition gases pushed the dead animals back out of the ground.
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