Certain mass slaughter was illegal – NRK Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
Last autumn and winter, all of Denmark’s 15 million mink were killed. Mink farmers despaired. The images of dead mink in mass graves went around the world.
The mink was killed because the authorities feared that they would spread coronary heart disease. Infection in mink in Denmark was first detected in mid-June 2020.
First, all mink were killed in safety zones of 7 to 8 kilometers around each farm with infection.
But the infection increased faster than they managed to kill, says Kåre Mølbak, then professional director at the Statens Serum Institut, corresponding to the Norwegian NIPH.
At one point last year, there were 300,000 infected mink.
– We got an epidemic that was ten times bigger than among humans. Also seen internationally, it was violent, says Mølbak when he explains himself on Thursday to the so-called Mink Commission, which was set up in April. It reports the policy.
The infection and the problem grew so much that it could be up to the politicians to decide what to do, says Mølbak.
Illegal killing
After it was also found some cases of a mutation that one was particularly concerned about, the government decided that all mink should be killed.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will inform about this at a press conference on 4 November 2020.
But decisions to kill all the fresh mink did not have Danish public legal authority.
Minister of Food and Agriculture Mogens Jensen resigned when this became known.
The Mink Commission has reviewed one million documents, according to Denmark’s radio.
Now it turns out that the head of department in the Ministry of the Environment and Food, Tejs Binderup, knew that it was illegal to kill Denmark’s mink population, before it happened.
But neither he nor the head of the ministry informed Jensen about this, appears in the first hearing about the scandal.
Assumed that one would find the right home
From Thursday until December called 61 elected representatives and government employees on the carpet, in a courtroom in Frederiksberg. This is where Kåre Mølbak forklift finds itself.
Earlier in the day, Tejs Binderup has a forklift. He says that he did not tell the now resigned Minister of Food that they did not have the legal authority to kill all mink. He also did not discuss it with the head of the ministry.
– We did not discuss it explicitly, that we must remember to say that to Mogens, says Binderup, but adds that it was not relevant:
– If the government thought that scenario three was the right way to go, you have to establish relevant legislative work before you can make decisions, he says according to the policy.
He assumed that the government would provide the right legal authority, if they would actually end up killing the mink.
According to the hearing of Binderup, the ministry already received an order in September last year, where they could be asked to calculate the price of three different scenarios that would deal with the corona infection among mink.
Two of the scenarios involved killing the mink population – either only the corona infected, or all of them.
But the Food Directorate in Denmark already wrote then that at that time there was no legal basis for killing fresh mink. Head of department Binderup thus knew that what Danish communication later did was illegal.
Not relevant to inform the Minister
Binderup was asked if he remembers assessments of the legality of killing Denmark’s mink population.
– There has been no doubt that the law on keeping animals can not be used to slaughter all animals. So if I had had it myself, it would not be a surprise to me, says Binderup in the hearing.
It was the law on keeping animals that was used to kill the animals, according to DR. His clear view was that killing Danish mink was expropriation, ie forced takeover of private property, writes Politiken.
Binderup believes that the responsibility for mass slaughter lies with the entire government.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will also take a forklift to the Commission.