Animal welfare groups criticize response to bird flu outbreak at Utah mink farm • Utah News Dispatch

The first case of avian flu in mink was diagnosed in Utah this summer. (Photo courtesy of Animal Wellness Action)

Cases and health response

After reports of a bird flu outbreak at a mink farm in Utah emerged, animal welfare advocates are describing the state’s response to it as “dangerously lax.”

However, records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show seven cases of avian influenza among captive mink in Salt Lake County collected and confirmed in August — though the data may be incomplete, the agency said in its website.

Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, two advocacy groups, criticized the lack of information released to the public, including the mink population of the affected farm, whether there was mink-to-mink transmission of the virus, its source, or any worker exposure findings.

“This isn’t an obscure infection in an isolated wild animal,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, said in a news release.

Americans deserve to know what happened and what government found.”

Outbreak background

“It occurred among intensively confined mink, animals with a documented history of amplifying respiratory viruses and providing opportunities for viral evolution.