The Canadian Food Inspection Agency stated Friday that it used “professional marksmen” to kill a flu-exposed ostrich herd in British Columbia, bringing to an finish an almost year-long legal saga that had attracted attention from conservatives in the United States, together with US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“As part of its disease response policy, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has culled the ostrich population on a farm in Edgewood, British Columbia,” the CFIA stated in a press release Friday.
The farm in query, Universal Ostrich Farms, will stay underneath quarantine.
“After consulting with experts experienced in managing ostrich disease outbreaks,” the assertion added, “the CFIA concluded that the most appropriate and humane option was to use professional marksmen in a controlled on-farm setting.”
Universal Ostrich Farms had launched a legal battle towards the CFIA’s determination to cull the herd, attracting the attention of Kennedy, who urged the Canadian authorities in May to rethink.
Kennedy had argued the animals uncovered to flu could maintain potential for illness analysis, however the company stated there was no proof for this and yesterday the Canadian Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case, eradicating the final legal roadblock to forestall their culling.
Katie Pasitney, the spokesperson for Universal Ostrich Farms, instructed NCS that the culling was “traumatizing.”
“There’s nothing professional or humane about putting almost 330 birds in a square pen in the dark of night and shooting at them,” Pasitney stated on Friday.
The CFIA had ordered the culling after detecting highly pathogenic avian influenza on the farm in December 2024.
In a press release revealed Thursday, shortly after the Canadian Supreme Court dismissed the case, the CFIA cited its “stamping out” coverage, in which uncovered or contaminated animals are killed en masse to forestall additional outbreaks.
The farm’s homeowners disputed the CFIA’s conclusions, arguing that the ostriches that survived the flu would possibly provide disease-fighting antibodies for analysis – an thought that Kennedy endorsed in his letter to the CFIA in May after assembly with Canadian officers.
The ostriches, Kennedy wrote, provided the “potential to study both antibody levels and cellular immunity to help further our scientific understanding of the virus and the immune physiologic response.”
The company, nonetheless, called the farm’s analysis claims “unsubstantiated,” saying that the CFIA had “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 CFIA ultimately took full management of the farm and its animals in September. Supporters have often gathered close to the farm to protest. In its assertion Friday, the CFIA warned demonstrators to not intrude with its operations and reiterated that drone flights over the property are unlawful.
Throughout the controversy, Canadian officers have cited the necessity to forestall an outbreak that would possibly harm the nation’s practically $7 billion poultry industry.
There are extra instances of avian flu in British Columbia than another Canadian province, in line with CFIA’s statistics, with an estimated 11,439,000 birds affected as of October 28.
Neighboring Alberta, the following most-affected province, has an estimated 2 million birds impacted.