Irish chief medical officer calls for mink cull as “a matter of urgency” LIMERICK, COPENHAGEN––Not even Guinness bottle caps are flipping, let alone champagne corks popping, in celebration of the anticipated imminent end of mink breeding in Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, France, and perhaps even Greece and Spain. Mink massacres underway in […]
Mink ranching survives in Denmark despite risky COVID-19 mutation
Danish mink industry was to be liquidated from fear that COVID-19 mutation could neutralize vaccines in development COPENHAGEN, Denmark––The Danish mink industry, on the verge of liquidation as of November 4, 2020 to control a COVID-19 coronavirus mutation, appears to have politically mobilized to win a reprieve––for the mink ranchers, however, not the mink […]
Mink the missing link? COVID-19 deaths & new data suggest yes.
Dutch findings come as COVID-19 hits mink farms & humans in Wisconsin & Utah GREEN BAY, Wisconsin; SALT LAKE CITY, Utah––Which came first, the COVID-19 coronavirus infecting humans, or infecting mink? No one right now knows for sure whether mink might have been the incubator species through which COVID-19 passed from horseshoe bats in […]
Mink & pig massacres due to COVID-19 may help to kill fur & pork industries too
Netherlands may end fur farming four years before ban takes effect LIMBURG, Netherlands; SIOUX CITY, Iowa––The good news, if it could be called that, about the scheduled massacre of as many as 30,000 ranched mink on June 6, 2020 is that it may put 10 mink farms owned by eight companies permanently out of business, […]
The minks’ jinx: is COVID-19 an exploited species’ revenge?
Dutch disclose second case of mink-to-human COVID-19 transmission WAGENINGEN, the Netherlands; WUHAN, China––“A second case has become known on one of the infected mink farms where, most likely, SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19]passed from mink to human,” Dutch minister of health Hugo DeYoung and minister of agriculture Carola Schouten jointly advised the Dutch parliament on May 25, 2020. […]
“That touch of mink” & COVID-19: Dutch outbreak hints mink may be host
Fur farming to end in The Netherlands by 2024 WAGENINGEN, The Netherlands––The discovery that ranched mink can become infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus may lend momentum to the Dutch national plan to phase out mink farming entirely by 2024. Concern that mink themselves might become a COVID-19 reservoir may also dampen Chinese enthusiasm for rebuilding […]
Why U.S. furriers don’t advertise much any more
Mink coat ads vanish from newsprint SACRAMENTO, California––A furrier somewhere in the U.S. may yet buy a page of advertising, in what little remains of 2019, in one of the thousands of newspapers that are electronically searchable at www.NewspaperArchive.com. As of December 29, 2019, however, the year appeared to be ending without a single NewspaperArchive […]
Suspect in faux fur-related stabbing previously tried to hire a killer
Third alleged attempt to kill a fur-wearer since 2012 CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio––Unable to hire a hit man to kill “someone who is wearing fur” in 2012, Meredith Marie Lowell, 35, on November 20, 2019 apparently decided to try to do the killing herself––for the second time in less than a year. Cleveland Heights police […]
Noted in passing: Tresz, Muliro, Ndou, Hanson, Broecker, Lagerfeld
Six people with little in common except influencing how humans see animals Hilda Tresz, Freddy Mahamba Muliro, and Joel Celestine Mambou Ndou, none of them ever famous, in various ways devoted their lives to great apes. Wade Hanson spent the last 24 years of his life as a humane officer. Wallace Broecker for more than 50 […]
“Best science” won’t protect “clean meat” from foes, warns vet of biotech wars
Fear of science & change will be weapons for animal industries trying to save their rump roasts CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts––“Do not assume that doing the best science possible will insulate you from criticism,” AquaBounty Technologies chief executive Ronald L. Stotish warned the New Harvest 2018 conference on “cellular agriculture,” toward the end of two days […]