Victims, Not Vectors — CFIA's Ostrich Cull Misses the Real Source of H5N1 Risk

Initially printed on Pam Killeen: September 26, 2025

The Mistaken Goal

Katie Pasitney, spokeswoman for Common Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C., says the Canadian Meals Inspection Company (CFIA) instructed her that migratory birds probably contaminated her farm’s consuming pond — now the premise for ordering her total flock of ostriches to be destroyed.

On December 31, 2024, lab exams on two ostrich carcasses got here again constructive for H5, later confirmed H5N1. The CFIA then invoked its stamping-out coverage and ordered the flock depopulated. In all, 69 birds died through the December-January outbreak; since mid-January 2025, there have been no reported deaths and the surviving flock has been described in court docket supplies as wholesome for months.

Underneath CFIA’s method, as soon as a premises is asserted contaminated or uncovered, all birds on that premises are slated for depopulation — the coverage doesn’t present for re-testing survivors to spare people.

The query is apparent: if virus-carrying wild birds contaminated the pond, why is the hammer falling on the ostriches? They’re victims, not vectors (carriers or spreaders of illness) — and aiming at them lets upstream environmental sources off the hook.

What Latest Fieldwork Exhibits

New discipline analysis from California’s dairy scorching spots needs to be a wake-up name. On 14 H5N1-affected dairies, scientists discovered infectious H5N1 in milking-parlor air throughout milking and viral RNA all through the wastewater stream, with infectious virus in some wastewater samples — together with manure lagoons that migratory birds go to.

In plain phrases: industrial processes can aerosolize and focus virus, and lagoons can feed it again to wildlife, making a believable bridge from factory-farm operations to smallholdings like Common Ostrich Farms.

It’s a System Drawback, Not a One-Off

Industrial livestock programs generate huge volumes of untreated waste, saved in open lagoons or unfold on fields. Manufacturing unit Farm Nation 2024 estimates 1.7 billion confined animals within the U.S. producing ~941 billion kilos of manure every year, a lot of it untreated. Storms and floods routinely overwhelm lagoons, flushing air pollution — and probably pathogens — into waterways. If regulators are severe about stopping environmental transmission, that is the place they need to focus first.

B.C. — Reacting, Not Fixing

B.C.’s personal data present repeated avian-flu clusters within the Fraser Valley. The standard response — “cull every thing close by” — makes headlines, not progress.

If infectious virus is in milking-parlor air and farm wastewater that migratory birds frequent, an actual response begins on the high: establish and repair the supply of contamination, then take concrete steps to disrupt environmental unfold (for instance, deal with wastewater earlier than discipline use, cowl or seal manure lagoons, deter wild birds from contaminated websites, and filter air in barns and parlors).

To be exact about coverage: CFIA’s public AI (Avian Influenza) steering facilities on depopulation, motion controls, biosecurity, and cleansing, and disinfection; it doesn’t require upstream environmental controls like lagoon covers, wastewater therapy, or air monitoring in milking parlors.

That coverage hole leaves the principle environmental reservoirs largely unaddressed whereas small farms face culls. Killing apparently wholesome ostriches with out first testing and fixing upstream sources isn’t simply shortsighted. It’s scientifically reckless.

Culling Survivors Defies Frequent Sense

Much more misguided is the notion of culling animals that survive an sickness; such a coverage defies each logic and fundamental science. When an individual recovers from a foul chilly or flu, we acknowledge their restoration as an indication of resilience and restored well being — not as a biohazard requiring elimination. The identical precept ought to apply to different creatures: an ostrich (or any animal) that overcomes an infection is demonstrating pure resilience, probably even carrying antibodies that make it much less of a risk going ahead.

In truth, a College of British Columbia knowledgeable supplied an affidavit testifying that these surviving ostriches have developed immunity to avian flu — underscoring how mindless a cull can be. You, the reader, have in all probability had a foul chilly or flu — ought to that imply you have to be culled too? The absurdity of the query itself exposes how irrational blanket culls of wholesome survivors really are.

Scale Magnifies Danger — Small Farms Pay the Value

The largest hazard of manufacturing facility farming isn’t simply air pollution — it’s the overwhelming scale of those operations. When avian flu hits big egg or poultry complexes, mass depopulations ripple by means of provide chains — however massive companies often survive the shock. Small household farms don’t have that buffer.

The long-term development is stark: about 733,000 farms in 1941 has fallen to 189,874 farms in 2021. Heavy-handed stamping-out insurance policies speed up that decline, pushing out small, impartial operations — typically the very farms making an attempt to do issues proper. These farms feed their neighbors, assist native economies, and take care of the land. We want extra of them, not fewer.

A Supply-First Plan

Check the atmosphere and publish the information. Pattern the ostrich pond (inflows/outflows), close by sump pits, fields irrigated with reclaimed wastewater, and manure lagoons for H5N1 RNA and infectious virus. Publish Ct values, tradition outcomes, and chain-of-custody. This mirrors the California protocol and would verify — or rule out — an environmental route tied to industrial waste streams.

Monitor the air the place publicity happens. Use validated air samplers in close by milking parlors and downwind areas. If infectious virus is current throughout milking, goal mitigation the place transmission truly occurs: respiratory and eye safety, rigorous disinfection of milking tools, secure dealing with/therapy of contaminated milk, and therapy of wastewater earlier than discipline use.

Restrict wildlife entry to contaminated websites. If lagoons draw migratory birds, require deterrents or covers, improve waste dealing with, and set measurable therapy requirements. Leaving that system untouched whereas slaughtering birds on a small farm is regulatory theater, not public well being.

Do the Proper Issues — within the Proper Order

This isn’t a plea to do nothing. It’s a plea to do the best issues in the best order. If the CFIA can present latest, farm-specific proof that the ostriches are contaminated — primarily based on correct sampling and clear documentation — it would have a stronger case. But when the proof factors to industrial air and wastewater because the drivers of environmental contamination, then mass-culling a pond-drinking flock is each merciless and counterproductive.

Maintain Your Eye on the Supply

Till we confront the open manure lagoons and airborne contamination coming from industrial livestock programs, culling ostriches will do nothing to guard public well being. It received’t cease the virus. It received’t make British Columbians — or our farms — any safer.

What it would do is destroy another small, impartial operation whereas the true sources of an infection stay untouched.

We don’t want extra scapegoats. We want smarter coverage. It’s time for the CFIA to cease the cull, rethink its technique, and begin concentrating on the true sources of an infection — like open manure lagoons, contaminated air, and industrial waste streams.

Concerning the Creator

Pam Killeen is a well being coach, podcaster, and co-author of the New York Instances bestselling guide “The Nice Chook Flu Hoax” (2006). She writes and speaks extensively on well being, vitamin, and systemic corruption in science and public coverage.

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