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– Mink in Denmark was a major problem during the pandemic and 15,000 farmed minks have been killed by the coronavirus in the US so far. Now, the Department of Agriculture announced Monday that a wild mink in Utah was found to have the coronavirus – the first confirmed case of the virus in a wild animal, Reuters reports. The USDA discovered the case during routine wildlife surveillance around contaminated farms; other species were also tested and found to be negative.
“There is currently no evidence that SARS-COV-2 is circulating or located in wild populations around the infected mink farms,” the International Society for the Infectious Diseases said in a statement. But the Humane Society cites the case as a reason to end mink farming in the US, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Domesticated cats and dogs, as well as zoo animals, are also infected. (Like these snow leopards.)