Danish PM defends culling of 17 million mink

The Prime Minister of Denmark has defended her government's decision to authorise a mass culling of 17 million mink last year.

In a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen ordered the culling of the animals, devastating a lucrative industry renowned for high-end furs.

This week Ms Frederiksen has been fronting a top-level judicial inquiry into whether her government's decision was legal, Reuters reports.

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While Danish citizens generally backed Ms Frederiksen's initial handling of the pandemic, a political storm erupted when it came out that there had been no legal basis to order the cull of healthy mink.

The incident triggered the resignation of the agriculture minister and the founding of a parliamentary-backed commission to investigate whether the Danish government knew legal authority was lacking.

Danish media labelled the affair "Mink gate".

But Ms Frederiksen defended her government's decisions over the mink culling at the inquiry.

"The only right way would be that a government is told upfront whether there is a legal basis or not to make the decision," Ms Frederiksen said.

"That did not happen that day. There is no explanation other than that it was busy."

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Ms Frederiksen has insisted the decision was correct and based on expert health advice.

"I have made many difficult decisions during the corona epidemic, this was one of the most difficult," she said.

The government burned most of the 17 million mink in incinerators in October and November last year, after it was discovered there had been a coronavirus outbreak among the country's 200 farms and this could cause a mutated strain among humans.

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But limited capacity in the incinerators meant authorities had to bury around four million of the carcasses on military grounds in the west.

The burial site became a concern when gases from the mink bodies started to release into the sandy soil, causing them to resurface in what some described as something out of a zombie film.

Authorities dug the buried mink up and moved tonnes of bodies into incinerators.