自由時報

陳成良

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皮毛養殖場撲殺 新冠疫情已造成逾100萬隻水貂送命

 

冠狀病毒大流行已經奪走了超過100萬人的生命，但我們並不是唯一受肺炎（新型冠狀病毒病，COVID-19）威脅的生物：由於病毒傳播，成千上萬的水貂被宰殺。

 

美國國家廣播公司新聞網（NBC News）報導，美國猶他州的農場有近1萬隻水貂死亡，而根據天空新聞報導，歐洲的情況甚至更加淒慘，例如，在西班牙一座農場，超過9萬2000隻水貂被屠殺，據估計其中90%感染了該病毒。

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在荷蘭，貂的死亡總數更高。據美聯社報導，因擔憂水貂可能將病毒傳回給人類，荷蘭國內有超過100萬隻水貂被撲殺。世界衛生組織的流行病學家范科霍芙（Maria Van Kerkhove）曾表示，從動物身上感染COVID-19的風險仍舊「十分有限」。

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COVID-19 has caused over 1 million mink to be killed due to culling at fur farms

 

The coronavirus pandemic has already claimed more than a million human lives, but we aren’t the only living things in danger from COVID-19：minks are being killed off in their thousands because of the spread of the virus.

 

NBC News reports on the deaths of almost 10,000 minks at farms in Utah in the US, while the picture in Europe has been even bleaker according to Sky News – at a farm in Spain, for example, over 92,000 of the animals have been slaughtered after it was estimated that 90 percent of them had caught the virus.

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In the Netherlands, the death toll has been even higher：over 1 million mink have been culled in the country over concerns that the animals could pass the virus back to humans, as per an AP report. World Health Organisation epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove has said the risk of catching COVID-19 from an animal remains "very limited".