Culled mink resurface after burial in Denmark

FILE - In this file photo dated Friday Nov. 6, 2020, mink look out from a pen on a farm near Naestved, Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has appointed Thursday Nov. 19, 2020, a new agriculture minister, after Mogens Jensen resigned after the government ordered the culling of all Danish mink because of the coronavirus, but without having the necessary legislation in place first.(Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

 COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Some of the thousands of mink culled to minimize the risk of them re-transmitting the new coronavirus to humans have risen from their shallow graves in western Denmark after gases built up inside the bodies, Danish authorities said Thursday.

“The gases cause the animals to expand and in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground,” Jannike Elmegaard of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said. He said it affected “a few hundred” animals.

The mink are buried in trenches that are 2.5 meters (8.25 feet) deep and 3 meters (10 feet) wide. A first layer of about 1 meter of dead mink are then covered with chalk before another layer of animals is laid, covered again with chalk and then with dirt, Elmegaard told The Associated Press.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/denmark-coronavirus-pandemic-ec01a67013c6f1fd49156c4fa9b09c35