A herd of ostriches is seen on a remote farm in Edgewood, B.C., in an undated photo supplied by Universal Ostrich Farms Inc.Katie Pasitney/The Canadian Press
A member of a British Columbia regional district says a decision not to allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to dispose of ostrich carcasses in its landfills pending further testing of the birds has been met with “gratitude.”
The Regional District of Central Kootenay board resolved “to withhold acceptance, at any landfill” of ostrich carcasses from a farm in Edgewood, B.C., where as many as 400 ostriches are expected to be culled over exposure to the avian flu.
The board resolution says the landfill acceptance hinges on further testing by either the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or the Ministry of Agriculture, until the number of birds infected or exposed to the virus is confirmed.
Aidan McLaren-Caux, a board vice-chair with the regional district, says the resolution’s “intentions are difficult to capture,” because it passed as written Thursday after an emotional meeting with supporters of the farm opposed to the planned cull.
McLaren-Caux says regional officials received hundreds of emails before the meeting and the rationale behind the landfill resolution was to possibly give the farmers and ostriches “a reprieve from the cull order,” which was upheld by a Federal Court judge this week.
He says the district has no authority over federal decisions, but it does have power over regional waste management, and given how the motion is worded, he believes any positive test for bird flu would mean “our landfill would have to accept animals that had been culled.”
He said the ostrich farm’s plight has brought an “extraordinary amount of attention” to the region in southeastern British Columbia.
“A lot of the attention has come from elsewhere, so other parts of the province, and the country, and even international,” he said. “The people who are supporting the farm have definitely taken advantage of kind of the viral nature of social media and YouTube and all the things to get support and support from even far away.
“It’s definitely a topic of conversation at coffee shops,” McLaren-Caux said.
Dozens of people heeded the call of the farm’s owners to converge upon the property, about 575 kilometres southeast of Vancouver, to stop the Canadian Food Inspection Agency from moving ahead with cull of the flock of ostriches.