13,000 tonnes of dead mink excavated in Denmark

Dead minkPhoto: Mikkel Berg Pedersen / Ritzau Scanpix / NTB

The work of excavating four million dead mink in Denmark is underway. The animals were killed in November to stop outbreaks of mutated coronavirus variants.

Around 4 AM on Thursday, excavators were set in motion to carry out the work in Nørre Felding near Holstebro in Jutland.

“When you enter the area, there is a smell of death,” the news agency Ritzau’s correspondent Mikkel Berg Pedersen said.

The dead animals were then driven away in trucks, TV Midtvest reported, and transported to a waste facility where they will be incinerated. 

Thursday’s operation was a kind of test excavation to examine the condition of the animals after six months underground.

Coronavirus fears

All Danish mink farms were told to kill the animals in November last year. The reason was the discovery of a mutated coronavirus at some of the farms.

The dead animals were first buried, but a majority in the Danish parliament (Folketing) decided that they should be dug up again and be burned. 

This work began now, after six months, because it is considered that the mink no longer pose a risk of infection. The goal is for all animal carcasses to be dug up and burned by mid-July.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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