CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday confirmed the first case of a corona virus, a wild animal, a mink.
The discovery raises concerns about mink explosions, which have killed more than 15,000 farm mines in the United States since August.
World health officials have been exploring the potential danger to animal populations since Denmark last month launched a plan to cut its agricultural mink population to 17 million.
The USDA has confirmed a “free, wild mink” case in Utah as part of wildlife surveillance around affected farms.
Several animal specimens belonging to different wildlife species were sampled, all of which were negatively tested, the USDA added.
The agency said it had recently reported the case to the World Health Organization, but said there was no evidence that the virus was prevalent in the wild population around the affected mink farms.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the 1st free, native wild animal certified with SARS-CoV-2,” the USDA said in a statement.
The virus has also been found in zoo tigers and domestic cats and dogs.
Report by Tom Polansek; Editing by Aurora Ellis