(Reuters) -Canada’s government will cull more than 300 ostriches at a farm in British Colombia, where some birds were infected with avian flu, after the country’s highest court on Thursday declined to hear arguments to spare them.
The Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood argued its birds survived an original infection, detected in December 2024, and had become immune to the avian flu.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) late last year ordered the ostriches to be killed — standard procedure for commercial flocks infected with bird flu. On Thursday, the agency said it would move forward with the cull.
The farm’s struggle has attracted many supporters, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Some members of the former “Freedom Convoy” movement, which led Canada-wide protests against vaccine mandates and other government measures during the pandemic, have also lent their support to the farm’s struggle against the CFIA’s attempts to euthanize the birds.
“The CFIA has respected all orders and decisions of the courts throughout the legal process and expects the ostrich farm owners and supporters to do the same now that the Supreme Court of Canada has issued its judgment,” CFIA said in a statement.
Avian influenza, known to many as bird flu, is a highly contagious disease for many bird species. It can also infect mammals, including humans and cattle. A B.C. teenager became critically ill with H5N1 in 2024. Bird flu has cost the American poultry industry billions of dollars and provoked a spike in U.S. egg prices.
The Universal flock, in B.C.’s mountainous southeast, has been under the control of the CFIA since September. The agency said it has been feeding and caring for the birds.
Police have been involved with security around the CFIA operation. Four people have been arrested for allegedly obstructing CFIA actions.
(Reporting by Ed White; Maiya Keidan and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Sharon Singleton)
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