In a scene straight out of a horror movie, dead mink are rising from their graves in Denmark. And this is not hyperbole. The creatures who were culled amid fears of a coronavirus mutation are indeed emerging from under the soil and popping out of their mass graves, leading to many dubbing them as 'zombie mink'.
According to the World Health Organisation report from November 6, there have been a little more than 200 COVID-19 cases identified in Denmark since June that have SARS-CoV-2 variants associated with farmed minks. This includes 12 cases with a unique variant that were reported on 5th November. All 12 cases were identified in September 2020 in North Jutland, Denmark. The cases ranged in age from 7 to 79 years, and eight had a link to the mink farming industry and four cases were from the local community.
Against this backdrop, the country that is the world’s largest exporter of mink fur announced earlier this month that it would cull it's mink population. This number incidentally comes to around 15 million mink. Since then, thousands of mink have been killed and dumped into shallow graves.
In recent days however, they have terrified many as the dead mink appear to be rising from their graves. While the Danish environment ministry reportedly assures that this is a "temporary problem", a fence has been put up to "to avoid potential problems for animals and humans". According to the police, the gases formed as the bodies decay are prompting the bodies to rise upward.
