Mink fur farms represent both a significant animal welfare concern and a disease spillover risk, as demonstrated by SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks that spread from minks to humans.
The mass culling of 17 million minks in Denmark demonstrated both the scale of the industry and its potential as a public health risk. Culling methods during disease emergencies, including gassing with carbon dioxide, cause suffering to animals that show distress behavior during the process. The underlying welfare problems of cage confinement, which existed before the outbreak, remain endemic to the industry. The pandemic experience provided public health justification for welfare-motivated bans that advocates had previously struggled to enact.