自由时报

陈成良

​

皮毛养殖场扑杀 新冠疫情已造成逾100万隻水貂送命

 

冠状病毒大流行已经夺走了超过100万人的生命，但我们并不是唯一受肺炎（新型冠状病毒病，COVID-19）威胁的生物：由于病毒传播，成千上万的水貂被宰杀。

 

美国国家广播公司新闻网（NBC News）报导，美国犹他州的农场有近1万隻水貂死亡，而根据天空新闻报导，欧洲的情况甚至更加凄惨，例如，在西班牙一座农场，超过9万2000隻水貂被屠杀，据估计其中90%感染了该病毒。

​

在荷兰，貂的死亡总数更高。据美联社报导，因担忧水貂可能将病毒传回给人类，荷兰国内有超过100万隻水貂被扑杀。世界卫生组织的流行病学家范科霍芙（Maria Van Kerkhove）曾表示，从动物身上感染COVID-19的风险仍旧「十分有限」。

​

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.

​

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".