Birds of a feather …
Animal-loving New York City supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis has joined forces with emu-owning federal health Commissioner Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in urging Canadian officials to take their heads out of the sand to save ostriches at a north-of-the-border bird farm.
Catsimatidis told The Post on Sunday he is grateful the head of Health and Human Services is also now sticking his neck out for the cause, which he has been pushing since last month, as first reported by The Post’s Page Six.
“Let’s save the ostriches! They have a right to live if they are healthy,” said the Gristedes supermarket founder, who also owns 770 WABC radio.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has said it needs to kill nearly 400 of the birds at the Universal Ostrich Farm in British Columbia to curb the spread of the avian flu.
Catsimatidis, who also owns oil and bio-fuel businesses, said he raised the alarm after animal-rights activists alerted him to the situation.
“I love animals. Let’s save the whales, too,” he said — noting his next project is protect whales from being imperiled by offshore wind-power set-ups.
The mogul also has been known to love pandas, once trying to convince the Chinese government to loan out the bears to the Big Apple’s Central Park Zoo.
As for the ostriches, Kennedy, along with the heads of the US Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, sent a May 23 letter to the Canadian agency urging it to reconsider its plan.
The birds don’t need to be killed to thwart the flu, wrote RFK Jr., who famously owns a pet emu, in the letter first reported by Rebel News.
The ostriches should be preserved for long-term scientific study instead of culling or killing them, he said, echoing Catsimatidis’ stance.
“Ostriches can live up to 50 years, providing the opportunity for future insights into immune longevity associated with the H5N1 virus,” Kennedy said in the letter co-signed by NIH Director Jay Bhattachary and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary.
“The indiscriminate destruction of entire flocks without up-to-date testing and evaluation can have significant consequences, including the loss of valuable genetic stock that may help explain risk factors for H5N1 mortality,” the letter said. “This may be important for future agricultural resilience.”
The missive added that avian influenza has been endemic in birds for thousands of years and that culling birds would be “fruitless unless we are willing to exterminate every wild bird in North America.”
“We’re dealing with a bunch of bureaucrats in Canada. They’re mean-spirited,” Catstimatidis said.
“Test the ostriches. They are not sick!”
He added that the ostriches may have “herd immunity” whose antibodies can be studied to save human lives.
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