Canada’s Supreme Court declined to hear an enchantment on the proposed culling of a British Columbia ostrich herd, in a case that has attracted the eye of US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” motion.
The court’s dismissal paves the best way for the flock of round 330 ostriches to be culled. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) had ordered the birds to be euthanized after detecting highly pathogenic avian influenza on the farm in late December 2024.
In a press release printed Thursday, the CFIA confirmed that it will transfer ahead with euthanizing the ostriches underneath its “stamping out” coverage, wherein contaminated or uncovered animals are killed within the occasion of a illness outbreak. The assertion didn’t present a timeline.
“This is the saddest day in Canadian history,” Katie Pasitney, the spokesperson for Universal Ostrich Farms and the daughter of considered one of its co-owners, informed NCS shortly after the court made its announcement.
Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, British Columbia says it’s elevating the animals to research their capacity to produce disease-fighting antibodies. The farm has been embroiled in a authorized battle with the CFIA for almost a yr over the matter.
The CFIA has called the farm’s analysis claims “unsubstantiated,” saying that the company “has not received any evidence of research activities” on the ostrich farm, nor “any research to show the flock of ostriches currently under quarantine has a unique capacity to produce eggs with antibodies.”
The farm’s plea to save the ostriches from culling was heard by Trump administration officers like Kennedy.
After assembly with Canadian officers in May, Kennedy wrote a letter to the CFIA asking it to “consider not culling the entire flock of ostriches,” writing that the animals could possibly be used to research the “antibody levels and cellular immunity” to develop cures for illness.
“We believe there is significant value in studying this population,” Kennedy added.
NCS has reached out to Kennedy’s workplace for touch upon the court’s determination.
Pasitney informed NCS that she related with Kennedy by way of Republican grocery store magnate and lifelong New Yorker John Catsimatidis, who had taken up her Canadian farm’s trigger.
Catsimatidis bankrolled the farm’s authorized illustration and known as Thursday’s final result an instance of “government overreach,” in accordance to a spokesman for the businessman talking to NCS’s broadcast associate CBC.
NCS has reached out to Catsimatidis for remark.
An professional in avian virology informed NCS that the Canadian authorities’s order to cull the complete flock is consistent with customary avian flu mitigation efforts.
“Whenever there’s a foreign animal disease affecting a country, it could be Newcastle disease or avian influenza, the first thing is to stop the dissemination of the disease,” Rodrigo Gallardo, a professor of poultry drugs at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, stated. “And in order to do that, you euthanize flocks that have been infected.”
The Canadian authorities took management of the ostrich farm and its animals in September. Numerous folks continued to protest exterior the farm’s fences, and CFIA has warned the farm’s supporters from hindering authorities operations, or flying drones over the positioning.
On Thursday, an emotional Pasitney informed NCS that round 100 supporters had gathered on the farm to protest the choice. “These animals don’t deserve to die,” Pasitney stated. “They are our family members.”
“The CFIA has respected all orders and decisions of the courts throughout the legal process,” the company stated on Thursday, “and expects the ostrich farm owners and supporters to do the same now that the Supreme Court of Canada has issued its judgment.”
In ordering the culling, CFIA repeatedly cited the necessity to forestall injury to the nation’s almost $7 billion poultry industry.
British Columbia has struggled extra with hen flu than another Canadian province, in accordance to CFIA’s statistics, with an estimated 11,439,000 birds affected as of October 28. The next-closest ranked province, Alberta, has an estimated two million birds impacted.