Last stand for the ostriches: Live updates from B.C. farm’s legal appeal against CFIA cull order

Follow along during today’s Federal Court of Appeal hearing as Edgewood farmers fight to save their healthy ostriches from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s senseless cull order.

Drea Humphrey
  |   July 15, 2025   |   News Analysis   |   Be the first to comment

 

After months of legal battles, public outcry, and a growing grassroots movement, Universal Ostrich Farms' fight against the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) mass cull order has reached a critical point.

Today, July 15th, in Ottawa, the Federal Court of Appeal will hear Universal Ostrich Farms Inc. v. CFIA, where the Edgewood, B.C. farmers hope to overturn a lower court decision that upheld the federal agency’s plans to slaughter their healthy flock of 400 ostriches.

I will be covering the hearing via live-tweet updates, which you can follow here:

The CFIA ordered the mass destruction of the exotic birds after entering the farm late last year, following an anonymous tip, and declaring an avian flu outbreak after testing two of the flock’s dead carcasses with a PCR test.

Sixty-nine ostriches, mostly from the younger flock, died while the illness passed through the herd, and the hundreds of remaining birds have been symptom-free for more than 180 days. The farm says their birds, which are not used for human consumption, are worth more to society alive than dead, especially in order to continue therapeutic antibody research their eggs are used for.

But the CFIA remains intent on culling them anyway, citing its internationally aligned “stamping-out” approach, a policy that has been used to justify the mass culling of over 8.7 million birds in B.C. for “avian flu control” since 2022.

A peaceful grassroots resistance has taken on the farmers' plight, with protesters camped out at the farm in rotation for months in fear of the CFIA’s hired hitmen coming to off the birds. This past weekend, the farm hosted a Farm Aid musical festival to help cover some of the legal fees for their challenge.

The fundraiser attracted freedom-minded performers and supporters including Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich along with Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who is well-known for being imprisoned for preaching the gospel in-person during COVID-19 lockdowns.

This case of government overreach, which outcome will serve as a precedent for farming, food sovereignty, and even scientific freedom, has caught the attention of prominent Americans like U.S. Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who urged the CFIA to back down and find a better solution in partnership with the United States, and U.S. head of Medicare, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who offered to explore relocating  the surviving ostriches from Universal Ostrich Farms to his private ranch in Florida.

The farm declined the offer, choosing instead to stay and fight the policy they say threatens not only their birds, but farming rights across Canada.

Representing the farm in today’s one-day appeal hearing is lawyer Umar Sheikh of Sheikh Law.  The Victoria-based lawyer’s services are being made possible through crowdfunding efforts from supporters.

“This is the last stand,” wrote farm spokesperson Katie Pasitney, who is also the adult-daughter of ostrich farm co-owner Karen Espersen, in a recent press release.

“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is continuing to pursue a cull order based solely on two flawed PCR tests conducted back in December 2024—with no necropsies, no follow-up testing, and no clinical signs of illness ever documented. And despite calling us a 'biosecurity threat,' CFIA hasn’t stepped foot on our farm in over four months. What they have done, however, is threaten us with six months in jail and $200,000 in fines—if we dare to independently test our own animals to prove their health."

"This is not science. This is control,” she continued.

Today the Court of Appeal will hear the farm argue just that. Only time will tell if that will be enough to save the flock.

Help Rebel News continue its reporting on the Ostrich massacre!

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For months, our team has been on the ground at Universal Ostrich Farms, documenting every step of this tragedy — from the first ominous signs of federal overreach to the night nearly a thousand shots rang out, leaving a field of hundreds of dead ostriches and a family shattered.

Our journalists confronted the RCMP, pressed CFIA officials, launched drones to reveal the truth, and refused to be intimidated or silenced.

But holding powerful institutions to account takes resources: travel, security, legal access, and the manpower of an around-the-clock reporting team.

If you believe in independent journalism that asks the tough questions the establishment won’t touch, please chip in to help us keep digging.

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Drea Humphrey

B.C. Bureau Chief

Based in British Columbia, Drea Humphrey reports on Western Canada for Rebel News. Drea’s reporting is not afraid to challenge political correctness, or ask the tough questions that mainstream media tends to avoid.

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