THOUSANDS OF mink carcasses have been rising from their graves in Denmark, following a rushed decision by the government to cull and bury the country's entire fur farm population.

Last month, a new vaccine-resistant mutated version of Coronavirus was discovered in farmed mink in a number of countries across Europe which led to cull orders for millions of animals in an attempt to curb the spreading of the virus to the human population.

Mink become infected through catching the virus from humans but in a small number of cases, it was found that the virus seems to have passed from mink to humans.

The big public health concern is that any mutation to the coronavirus as it passes between mink and humans might be enough to stop human vaccines working in the future.

In November, The Danish Government announced plans to cull all of its more than 15 million minks, however the rushed decision has turned into a national scandal after Prime Minister Frederiksen's government acknowledged that it had no legal right to order a cull of minks not contaminated by the Covid-19 variant.

To make matters worse, the burial ground assigned for the bodies outside the town of Holstebro in Western Jutland is reportedly situated too close to a nearby lake and concerns have arisen about potential contamination by the rotting bodies.

Denmark's state broadcaster DR reported these sightings on November 24, after the animals’ bloated cadavers were spotted popping up to the surface at the mass burial site – sparking a social media frenzy.

"It is an extraordinary situation," said Thomas Kristensen, a press officer with Denmark's National Police, which is responsible for the mink burials, told state broadcaster DR.

"In connection with the decay, gasses form, which cause the whole thing to expand a little, and then in the worst case they get pushed out of the ground."

The environment ministry, responsible for regulating the burials said in a statement that the minks' return from the grave was a 'temporary problem tied to the animals' decaying process'.

The dead minks have been buried in one metre deep graves and covered with lime and a layer of earth, but according to Mr Kristensen the earth around Holstebro had proven so sandy that more is needed to keep the carcasses down.

"One metre of soil is not just one meter of soil. It depends on what it is made of. So that’s why we’ve seen this happen," he told DR.

According to the country's environment ministry, the minks should also have been covered by at least 150 centimetres of earth.

The nearest neighbour to the grave, Karsten Dahl Schmidt, reported to DR his concerns that the liquids from the rotting bodies would seep into the nearby Boutrup Lake, which is a popular bathing spot, adding that the bodies should be removed and incinerated.