Local animal advocate worried about potential COVID outbreaks at mink farms

This comes after British Columbia reported several animals tested positive at mink farms in that province

HALIFAXtoday \  Chris Halef

A local animal rights advocate is sounding the alarm on the potential spread of COVID-19 at mink farms in Nova Scotia.

This comes after British Columbia reported several animals tested positive at mink farms in that province.

According to the province, there are more than 40 mink farms in Nova Scotia.

That’s concerning to Ty Savoy who told NEWS 95.7 fill-in host Todd Veinotte these farms have the potential to spread disease much like they have B.C.

“You look at factory farmed animals, you have the average fur farm in Nova Scotia which is roughly 10,000 to 12,000 animals,” he said. “It’s the perfect incubator of disease, even before COVID-19 there were issues with diseases on mink farms, like Aleutian disease virus and influenza virus.”

Savoy says Denmark and the Netherlands destroyed all of their farmed mink because of COVID-19 outbreaks earlier this year.

“The big worry is the variants that can emerge,” he said. “You have 10,000 to 12,000 animals stacked on top of each other, basically and these are immunocompromised animals because they’ve never been out in the wild.”

He says mink escape from these farms often, adding it’s not difficult to find dead ones on the road near areas of the province where these farms are located.