How the Ostrich Farm Cull Has Unleashed Threats of Violence

The union that represents Canadian Food Inspection Agency employees says members are concerned about threats being sent to workers from supporters of a B.C. ostrich farm.

Violent threats against government workers and businesses and a shocking physical attack on an elderly neighbour of the farm have highlighted how tensions around a CFIA-ordered cull of hundreds of ostriches have taken a very dark turn.

Universal Ostrich Farms, located in the tiny village of Edgewood, about 100 kilometres east of Vernon, has been fighting the CFIA’s cull order since January, after 15 per cent of its 400-strong ostrich flock died of avian flu.

CFIA has a “stamping out” policy that requires all poultry flocks to be killed if they are infected with H5N1, a variant of avian influenza that has caused severe illness and sometimes death in humans.

The farm has rallied a passionate group of supporters across Canada, many of whom are part of the “convoy” protest movement that opposed government measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Convoy protesters occupied Ottawa for weeks in January 2022, a protest that ended when hundreds of police officers dispersed protesters.

Observers have been warning about inflammatory language and threats of violence in online comments since the beginning of the conflict.

Milton Dyck, national president of the Agriculture Union, said CFIA employees have been getting disturbing phone calls and texts.

“The biggest problem is that some of our members are then having their partners tracked down, their children tracked down. It's very, very concerning,” Dyck said.

Dyck and other colleagues at the union have also been on the receiving end of abusive messages.

Dyck shared one email with The Tyee that read in part: “Fuck you’re all a bunch of dumbass embarrassments to this country, and I pray if you all do cull the birds, that countless workers are gone after. You all deserve it.”

Tensions ramped up after Sept. 22, when the CFIA took custody of the ostriches on the property.

The cull is on hold because the Supreme Court of Canada stayed action until it decided to consider an appeal of lower court decisions backing the CFIA’s authority.

On Sept. 25, the RCMP said officers had received multiple reports of businesses suspected of participating in CFIA’s operation being threatened.

“Businesses from across British Columbia have been flooded with phone calls and emails with language intended to intimidate should they continue to participate in CFIA’s operation. Some businesses have been targeted in error,” the RCMP said in a press release.

The release said that on Sept. 24 a business in Metro Vancouver reported receiving “threats of having their offices shot, their employees threatened with being followed and being shot at their residences.”

The RCMP say they’re investigating the threats but did not respond to The Tyee’s request for updated information on the investigation.

There is no indication the farm owners are responsible for any of the threats, although at certain points in the conflict they’ve called for supporters to come to the farm to help protect the ostriches.

Katie Pasitney, the daughter of Universal Ostrich owner Karen Espersen, has been acting as a spokesperson for the farm. She did not respond to The Tyee’s request for comment on the concerns about violent rhetoric.

Pasitney has posted Facebook videos urging supporters to remain peaceful. In a previous video, she said "we do not condone violence of any kind.”

At times, the farm has taken steps to try to correct misinformation about which businesses are working with CFIA.

In July, 26 Edgewood residents met with CTV reporter Judy Trinh to speak about their concerns regarding the infected ostriches. They had previously been unwilling to speak publicly out of fears of “harassment and intimidation,” according to CTV’s reporting. The group included 72-year-old Lois Wood, who lives right beside the Universal Ostrich property.

On Sept. 22 — the same day that CFIA workers arrived at the farm to begin caring for the ostriches — Wood was allegedly assaulted by a man who punched her in the face and poured gasoline on her home, then on her body. RCMP told CTV they have arrested a man who was associated with the supporters of the ostrich farm.

After Wood gave CTV an account of the terrifying assault, Pasitney responded that the broadcaster had chosen “to publish negative and false representations of Universal Ostrich Farm.”

Many people oppose the cull and politicians have spoken up in support of the farm. B.C. Premier David Eby previously said he wants to see CFIA be flexible when it comes to decisions about how to deal with outbreaks of avian flu.

In the spring, a teenage girl from Metro Vancouver who had contracted H5N1 and nearly died of the illness arrived at the farm to lend her support to preventing the cull.

But CFIA has been adamant that allowing the ostriches to remain alive and roam free on the farm could lead to new variants of avian flu developing in the ostriches, potentially spreading to wild birds, farm poultry and humans.

While a small number of people have been affected by the current variant of avian flu, H5N1, some of those who have contracted it have become very ill and some have died of the illness.

Even though the remaining ostriches who survived the initial exposure to avian flu appear healthy, the CFIA and other veterinary experts say they can still be carriers of the virus.

“When animals recover, and especially avian species recover from diseases, they can still be carriers, and that's actually very common,” said Maurice Pitesky, a professor at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of California, Davis.

“Are they shedding the virus in the same levels of when they were sick? Probably not, but... based on the literature, they can still be carriers.”

Scientists who study avian flu are also concerned about the potential for a process called reassortment — when different viruses mix inside an infected animal or person’s body and create new variants.

As sad as it is to imagine killing animals, Pitesky said, allowing the ostrich flock to live is “playing with fire” from both an economic and a public health perspective, because avian flu has “demonstrated an amazing ability to keep on reassorting and mutating.”

Pitesky also pointed out that British Columbia is particularly vulnerable to spreading avian flu because it’s on a key bird migration route. Over 8.7 million birds have been affected by avian flu in B.C., compared with just over two million in Alberta, the province with the next highest number of affected birds.

The union’s Dyck said CFIA workers, who are carrying out the policies and decisions of the federal agency tasked with keeping food safe in Canada, should not have to face harassment for doing their jobs.

Since the rise of the convoy movement in response to COVID-19 requirements, mistrust of government institutions has played a growing role in right-wing politics in Canada.

But Dyck said employees at CFIA feel they are helping to keep the country safe.

“We're doing a service for the country. And we expect to be able to keep Canadians safe and keep our markets safe,” Dyck said. “We need to be treated with respect. It’s quite shocking that we're being attacked for trying to do our job.”

Dyck pointed to a video posted by a man called David Cheyne, who called for protests at CFIA offices but also warned of “consequences” and promised to “fight back” if police attempt to stop their protests.

“Take this as a warning. It starts with this CFIA thing. This is not a threat. This is our legal right to protest,” Cheyne says at one point. “And if you take arms against us when we are legally protesting something, we are legally allowed to defend ourselves.”

While Cheyne talks about peacefully protesting at other points in the video, Dyck said the calls to “fight back” against police are concerning.

“I'm not sure where that goes,” he said.