Animal rights activists and Trump allies have united in Canada to halt the execution of ostriches.
The Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday issued an interim stay on a cull order involving 400 ostriches at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, British Columbia.
The battle to save the ostriches has been ongoing since May, when a federal court upheld a decision to cull the flock after avian flu was detected and killed 69 ostriches.
Protests against the cull drew attention not only locally, but also from allies of President Donald Trump.
In May, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a letter on X urging the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to stop the culling and instead “pursue collaborative research to study these unique animals.” The farm stopped producing the ostriches for food in 2020 and now raises the birds as part of a research project into the antibodies in ostrich eggs. Some scientists believe their robust immune systems may lead to medical breakthroughts.
Conservative commentator Chris Sanders claimed in a Facebook post this week that “liberal shmucks” are trying to euthanize the ostriches. He offered a few of his ranches in Oklahoma, Texas, or South Dakota as relocation sites, saying that the birds could be used for “science” because of the “antibodies they create.”
A similar proposal from the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mehmet Cengiz Oz—better known as Dr. Oz—to relocate the birds to his 900-acre ranch in Florida was rejected earlier this year by Katie Pasitney, spokesperson for Universal Ostrich Farms.
The billionaire Republican businessman John Catsimatidis also joined the effort to save the birds, saying on his radio show that he wanted “truth, justice, and the American way for the ostriches up in British Columbia.”
Locally, following the Supreme Court decision to halt the cull, the CFIA took control of the farm, but has raised concerns about the protesters, and collaborated with police, citing “ongoing threats of violence and death by apparent supporters of the ostrich farm.”
Katie Pasitney and her mother, Karen Espersen, who co-owns the farm, were arrested on Tuesday and later released after allegedly obstructing CFIA agents. The Daily Beast has reached out for comment.
Pasitney has argued against the culling, claiming the ostriches have developed “herd immunity,” considering the last death occurred on January 15.
The CFIA argued that the virus could potentially spread to humans and mutate, and that “stamping out”, or culling, the birds is recognized by the World Health Organization as an appropriate response.
“Allowing a domestic poultry flock known to be exposed to HPAI to remain alive means a potential source of the virus persists,” the CFIA said in a statement. “It increases the risk of reassortment or mutation of the virus, particularly with birds raised in open pasture where there is ongoing exposure to wildlife.”
Andrew Fenton, a bioethicist at Dalhousie University, told The Guardian that the farmers’ request was “reasonable,” but said the debate over the ostriches may reflect a broader, divisive anti-organization rhetoric emerging in public discourse.
“There is a sense in some of the rhetoric that ‘government is the bad guy’ and that it’s an individual fighting against a corrupt system,” Fenton said.
“There’s an anti-science sentiment in the air at the moment that’s becoming quite dangerous,” the bioethicist added.
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