Are you a lover of fashion? Are you upset that the whimperings of various animal freaks have prevented you from adorning yourself in the pelts of all things small and furry? Good news, the coronavirus has come to your rescue! In a selfless act of public service COVID-19 has expanded its reach to Denmark's mink population. The immediate result of this is that pretty soon Denmark won't have a mink population. On the other hand that fur coat you've been guiltily eyeing is about to get a whole lot cheaper as the pelts of some seventeen million mink suddenly turn up on the market.
Of course this is not great news for the mink. The coronavirus has jumped species from humans to mink, mixed itself up a little and is now in the process of jumping back into humans in a new, improved, mink flavoured form. The reaction of the Danish authorities has been measured and appropriate; they're going to kill all the mink. It was either that or kill all the humans. Sadly, despite criticism from the international community Denmark has not yet granted its mink citizenship so there are fewer votes to be lost in killing them.
COVID-19 has certainly caused misery and despair with over a million deaths world wide but frankly the human race is coming out of this rather well. Compared with what's happening to bats, quokkas, seagulls and now mink we'll be lucky if there's a single animal species left on the planet by the time this is over. Let's hope the thing can't spread to plants. The Danish prime minister has issued a minkocidal rallying cry to her people announcing that "the eyes of the world are on Denmark". Can I just assure any self conscious citizens of Denmark that the eyes of the world are not upon you. The eyes of the world have never been upon you. If it wasn't for Lego the rest of the world wouldn't even know your nation exists.
Such national anonymity is however very useful when you want to conduct somewhat morally dubious activities such as carving a blood spattered swathe through your mink population. Such publicity as there has been has been broadly positive. Even the Humane Society seemed to find it a good thing announcing that hopefully the sudden absence of mink will hasten the demise of the mink fur trade. Yes, its amazing how effectively wiping out a species will end trade in that species' products. Look for Humane Society hit teams to start targeting whales, rhinos, tigers and any other endangered animal harbouring saleable merchandise about its person. With any luck they'll have them all exterminated by Christmas.
Back in Australia far from the piles of mink corpses accumulating on every street corner in Denmark things have got so good that we haven't had to deliberately exterminate a species for weeks now. Even the population of Victoria is reveling in several consecutive days without infections. More accurately, such of the Victorian population as has been left alive is reveling etc etc. Tasmania whose own COVID disaster was really just a pitstop on its slide downward into survivalist anarchy has indicated that it might soon be permitting denizens of my state to resume visiting. I informed my Tasmanian correspondent of this and was rewarding with the sound of a door being bolted and an escape tunnel being dug.
Of course it isn't all peace and harmony among the states. My premier and the newly re-elected God-Empress of Queensland have been having a bit of a spat about the fact that Queensland is still refusing to permit the entry of citizens from the fifteen percent or so of New South Wales that hasn't already been unofficially annexed by Queensland. To make matters worse Queensland won the first State of Origin match so there was a definite air of smugness in the unreturned phone calls to our premier. Speaking personally I must say it is good to see natural relations between the states returning after the somewhat terrifying show of unity they were displaying earlier in the year. I don't like it when politicians agree with each other. Generally its an indication that someone else is about to get it in the neck.
No comments:
Post a Comment