Subhead:“Ostriches are not conventional poultry,” reads a letter from the American Ostrich Association. “They do not migrate, they do not fly, and when infected, they have a high recovery rate with minimal zoonotic risk.”#
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While U.S. scientists and agricultural experts call for reforming outdated bird flu policies, the Canadian government is preparing to destroy 400 healthy ostriches at a small farm in Edgewood, British Columbia, even though the animals have recovered from avian flu and pose virtually no transmission risk.
At the centre of the controversy is Universal Ostrich Farm, a family-run operation that’s now the target of a full-scale “stamping out” order by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The CFIA’s mandate is clear: kill every bird on the property, despite the fact that they’ve been virus-free for more than 260 days.
Meanwhile, in the United States, scientific and industry experts are saying what Ottawa won’t: ostriches are not chickens and they shouldn’t be treated like them.
The American Ostrich Association (AOA), which represents producers across the United States, recently issued a formal request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture urging an end to blanket kill orders for ostriches.
In an October 2024 letter addressed to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., AOA President Michael Lehman argued that ostriches’ biology and immune systems make them fundamentally different from conventional poultry.
“Ostriches are not conventional poultry,” the letter reads. “They do not migrate, they do not fly, and when infected, they have a high recovery rate with minimal zoonotic risk.”
Lehman warned that mass culling is an “existential threat” to ostrich producers, whose birds are long-lived and slow-breeding, meaning recovery from a full cull is not just costly, it’s genetically impossible. Unlike chickens, ostriches can live 40 years, and breeding new flocks can take decades.
