A Federal Court judge has tossed out a challenge that would have stopped the killing of about 400 ostriches on a British Columbia farm that suffered an outbreak of avian flu.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) ordered the cull late last year after the avian flu outbreak, but the court granted a stay in January pending a judicial review.
The family that owns Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood in southeastern B.C. has said the birds should be saved because they have developed herd immunity and could contribute to the fight against avian flu, describing them as happy and healthy.
In a post to its Facebook page, Save Our Ostriches, the farm says it is “absolutely devastated” by the ruling, which includes an order that it pay $15,000 to cover the CFIA’s legal costs.
“We are heartbroken by this outcome and uncertain about the future of our farm,” the post reads.
CBC News has reached out to the CFIA.
More than 8.7 million birds have been culled in B.C. at hundreds of farms, most of them commercial, since the first outbreak of a highly contagious form of the avian flu broke out in the spring of 2022.
‘Stamping out’ policy at heart of dispute
The case has attracted the attention of hundreds of supporters, who have made monetary donations to the farm’s legal fund and held rallies at the farm in favour of saving the ostriches.
The lawyer for Universal Ostrich argued in April that the CFIA failed in its mandate to fully investigate the case and didn’t follow its own policy around possible exemptions to a cull order, claiming ostriches should not be treated the same as poultry.
The farm’s legal counsel argued that the CFIA’s “stamping out” policy, which results in the killing and disposal of all domestic birds on site where avian flu is present, to have been both ineffective at stopping the spread of avian flu, and unnecessary now that it has been detected throughout the province and because the ostriches themselves are flightless.
But the CFIA’s lawyer said culls control the spread of diseases and limit the chance it can mutate into forms that are more easily passed on to mammals, including humans.
Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ruled Tuesday that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s decisions were both reasonable and procedurally fair, with the judge noting that “courts generally stay out of scientific debates.”
“Courts must also respect the demonstrated scientific and technical expertise of administrative agencies,” the judgment says. “When Parliament leaves technical or scientific assessments to specialized administrative bodies, it signals that those bodies, not the courts, are best positioned to make judgments on complex, expertise-driven matters.”
Zinn also said the disposal notice and denial of the farm’s exemption happened in December 2024 and January 2025, and the court can’t consider evidence that wasn’t available to it when those decisions were made.
He said the court “would be faulting decision-makers for lacking a crystal ball.”
“This court cannot consider ‘new’ evidence, such as the current health status of the ostriches, recent test results or updated scientific developments,” the ruling says in reference to claims that the ostriches are now free of disease.
The ruling also finds that the stamping out policy is a reasonable one, given the goals of the CFIA to stop the spread and mutation of disease.
“I conclude that the CFIA has fulfilled the high level of duty of fairness it owed to the Applicant [Universal Ostrich],” the ruling reads.
