More than 300 ostriches were mercilessly killed by a firing squad in Canada late Thursday, bringing an end to a tense standoff that had lasted for months. The situation had attracted widespread attention — even U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and New York billionaire John Catsimatidis had pleaded with authorities to save the birds.
The mass culling took place at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, British Columbia, just hours after Canada's Supreme Court declined to stop a federal order requiring the flock to be destroyed due to an avian flu outbreak, according to CBC. The United States has repeatedly requested that Canadian authorities not take such a drastic step
Merciless Killings
Canadian officials reportedly rejected those appeals from the U.S., refusing to spare the 330 ostriches that advocates had hoped could be used for research instead of being killed. "That's a real f–k you to everyone in the United States," Catsimatidis told The New York Post last month.
"Something smells."
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered the birds to be killed in a bid to stop the spread of avian flu after an outbreak at the farm last winter left 69 ostriches dead.
However, a spokesperson for the farm maintained that the remaining ostriches were completely healthy.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and John Catsimatidis had spent weeks appealing to the Canadian government to call off the cull, arguing that the birds were not infected and could actually help researchers study natural immunity to the virus.
"Ostriches can live up to 50 years, providing the opportunity for future insights into immune longevity associated with the H5N1 virus," Kennedy, who owns a pet emu, wrote in a May 23 letter to the CFIA co-signed by National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Food and Drug Administration boss Martin Makary.
"The indiscriminate destruction of entire flocks ... 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."
Alternate Solutions Were Possible
Witnesses said a convoy of CFIA trucks and SUVs arrived at the Edgewood farm around 6 p.m. on Thursday. Men dressed in protective suits entered the pens carrying equipment, while supporters gathered outside, praying and shouting for the birds to be spared. Moments later, gunfire began to echo across the property.
Janice Tyndall, a 72-year-old farmer from Salmon Arm — about 125 miles north of Edgewood — said she heard the shooting "on and off for a couple of hours" before she couldn't bear to listen any longer and drove away. Later that night, around midnight, she was still near the area when the gunfire started again.
"I'm thinking, 'they're still shooting? How could they still be shooting?'" she told the Times Colonist.
She said the gunfire sounded like a mix of deep, heavy bangs and sharper cracks — "like someone using a high-powered rifle."
Police surrounded the area and blocked off a nearby road during the cull, saying they needed to be there for safety reasons after "weeks of threats and intimidation" aimed at CFIA workers and contractors.
In a statement, the RCMP said they "did not otherwise take an active role in the cull." Staff Sgt. Kris Clark, who was present at the scene, added that the operation was briefly paused for security reasons during a police shift change.
