Judge grants temporary reprieve to hundreds of B.C. ostriches facing avian flu cull

A national justice has granted a impermanent reprieve to astir 400 ostriches that were facing a deadline connected Saturday for them to beryllium killed astatine a British Columbia workplace deed by an outbreak of avian flu.

Justice Michael Battista ruled Friday to enactment the cull bid imposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency portion the workplace seeks a judicial reappraisal of the case.

Battista said successful a written determination that going up with Saturday’s bid earlier the substance could beryllium further examined “would exposure the applicant to irreparable harm.”

A lawyer for Universal Ostrich Farms Inc. had argued successful a Friday proceeding successful Toronto Federal Court that the ostriches should beryllium exempt from the bid due to the fact that their genetics are the taxable of an antibody probe study, making them uncommon and valuable.

Michael Carter said his clients — workplace co-owners Karen Espersen and Dave Bilinski — had “happy tears” erstwhile they learned the quality aft watching the proceedings virtually from Edgewood, B.C., astir 200 kilometres eastbound of Kelowna.

“Next we volition beryllium proceeding with the proceeding to look astatine the CFIA’s determination to person the birds culled and whether it was reasonable,” Carter said successful a telephone telephone aft the decision.

Espersen’s daughter, Katie Pasitney, said everyone progressive with the workplace was “ecstatic” aft learning astir Friday’s decision.

“It’s been a batch of sleepless nights, and it’s been a batch of agelong days, not knowing if we were looking astatine having to spot 35 years of 400 animals get unnecessarily murdered, killed,” she said successful a telephone interview.

Pasitney said supporters would beryllium gathering connected Saturday to observe the “huge win,” portion respecting a quarantine announcement connected the farm.

“Ostriches emotion people. They’re precise curious. They’re precise funny successful radical and they emotion music, truthful I’m definite everybody is going to spot the ostriches each lined up on the road, astatine the fence, watching what’s going connected tomorrow.”

Still, Pasitney said Universal Ostrich knows determination is simply a agelong roadworthy ahead. They had not been informed of a day for a proceeding successful the judicial review, she added.

The CFIA issued the cull bid aft avian flu was detected successful 2 dormant ostriches Dec. 30 and its lawyer argued Friday that nationalist wellness concerns outweighed the farm’s position.

The national agency’s lawyer, Paul Saunders, told the proceeding that it required farms to cull full herds due to the fact that determination was a hazard that the microorganism could incubate, mutate and make caller variants, adjacent successful steadfast animals.

“There is simply a hazard of quality transmission. There is simply a hazard of unwellness and death,” Saunders said.

The workplace initially applied for a CFIA exemption for animals with uncommon genetics, but the national bureau denied their exertion Jan. 10.

In his ruling, Battista said that allowing the cull to proceed would mean irreparable harm successful the signifier of “the closure of (a) 25-year-old concern and the nonaccomplishment of the applicant’s decades-long efforts successful cultivating a unsocial herd of ostriches.”

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The disposal bid is stayed until a determination successful the judicial review.

Battista denied a petition to amend the quarantine announcement connected the farm.

The farm’s ostriches person been the taxable of a probe task successful collaboration with Dr. Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, president of Kyoto Prefectural University successful Japan.

The scientist, besides known arsenic Dr. Ostrich, has been extracting COVID-19 antibodies from ostrich eggs in B.C., gathering connected his decades of probe connected the antibodies successful ostrich ovum yolk that tin artifact infectious diseases.

Tsukamoto has said his probe could beryllium applied to avian flu.

Carter had argued that the ostriches’ genetics were irreplaceable and they should beryllium treated and researched.

“They treated the ostriches similar chickens successful a chickenhearted barn,” Carter said of the CFIA determination that considered the birds poultry.

Court documents amusement 69 of the 450 ostriches connected the workplace died betwixt mid-December and Jan. 15 aft showing symptoms of avian influenza.

— With files from Brenna Owen successful Vancouver