COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Long a world leader in mink farming, Denmark will shut it down for good, the country’s agriculture ministry announced Friday.
“Denmark is not applying for a special exemption to allow the Danish mink industry to continue when the EU ban on mink farming takes effect in August next year,” the ministry said in a statement.
In November 2020, Denmark’s government ordered a cull of the Scandinavian country’s some 15 million mink after studies suggested a variant found in some of the animals could jeopardize the effectiveness of future COVID-19 vaccines.
However the cull quickly turned into a political nightmare for the government as it later emerged there was no legal basis to impose the measure on farmers.
All breeding was subsequently banned in 2021 and 2022.
The ban on mink farming was lifted on Jan. 1, 2023, but the industry only saw a modest revival. By August 2026, the country had only seven farms.
“An industry should not continue just because it has existed for a long time. It also has to make sense for society, for the economy, and for the animals,” Minister for Nature and Animal Welfare Christian Rabjerg Madsen was quoted saying in the statement.
“The government has chosen to prioritise animal welfare,” he added, noting that the EU ban would enter into force on Aug.7, 2026.
A transitional period to allow farmers to wind down their operations will run until August 2029.
Before the mass cull in 2020, Denmark was the world’s leading exporter of mink pelts, with China being the largest customer.
