The Scientific and Ethical Case for Sparing the Ostriches

A Globe and Mail column suggested it's just emotions, not scientific reasoning, driving the advocacy to stop the Canadian Food Inspection Agency-mandated slaughter of about 400 ostriches on a farm in B.C.

Yes, H5N1 — a subtype of avian influenza — is a very serious issue for the poultry industry and carries real pandemic risks. While relatively few people have been infected with H5N1 so far, some have become very sick or have died of the illness.

Yes, emotions can run high and have been very heated about the ostriches on a farm in Edgewood, about 100 kilometres southeast of Vernon, B.C. Anti-government conspiracy theorists have also glommed on to the cause.

But to label the reasons not to slaughter those ostriches as purely emotional or primarily driven by concerns for public health is not at all accurate.

This week the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, released an update on the ostrich farm situation.

To be clear, the policy in Canada, as in many other countries, is that commercial poultry infected with H5N1 should be slaughtered and the farm financially compensated to restock with new birds. The B.C. ostriches (which had previously been vaccinated against COVID so that antibodies could be extracted from their eggs for commercial purposes) are not unique in surviving H5N1. Thousands of ostriches in South Africa with H5N1 have survived — and were also quarantined and culled.

But there are other important considerations.

First of all, there are the economic and practical realities. Consider cows. There are thousands of cows in the United States with H5N1. People have even gotten sick with H5N1 from these cows, likely as milk gets splashed into their eyes. And there has been H5N1 transmission from the cows back to birds. Arguably, the infected cows pose a larger public health risk than the ostriches in B.C. Where is the outcry to slaughter those cows?

Like animal welfare issues on commercial farms (for instance, confining pigs in gestation crates), a large part of the approach to H5N1 outbreaks on farms comes down to economics and expediency. Rather than the approach that’s best for public health, the approach that’s best for the industry’s bottom line often forces itself to the front and takes precedence.

Chickens are obviously different from cows. When infected with H5N1, over 90 per cent of the birds will die over the next few days. Because chickens, especially broilers, are usually slaughtered at a very young age anyway, it makes economic sense to slaughter the whole flock right away as soon as an outbreak has been detected. Then disinfect the building, and quickly start again.

Dairy cows, like those ostriches on the B.C. farm, have much better chances of survival than chickens. They are also slaughtered at a much later age than chickens. The economics weigh heavily, and, despite public health risks, the cows are not culled.

A second consideration is that H5N1 is not a chronic disease. In animals, much like in humans, influenza typically runs its course over a matter of days. Individuals are symptomatic for several days but do not shed live virus for months after the infection.

On a massive farm, the virus could transmit among the animals and persist on the farm for months. However, the B.C. ostrich farm is relatively small, and six months after being exposed/infected with H5N1, the remaining ostriches are no longer expected to be contagious. PCR testing could help detect if they are still shedding the virus.

Even if they are no longer contagious, the CFIA may still require the ostriches, considered poultry, to be culled to maintain their policy of not allowing the survival of any immune birds. Similarly, CFIA also has a policy to not allow farmers to vaccinate poultry against H5N1. Poultry with immunity have a much lower death toll, which could make disease detection and H5N1 surveillance more difficult. But that is a separate argument from stating that the ostriches on that B.C. farm are still shedding live virus.

And a third point is that H5N1 is endemic in wild birds. If the CFIA pays the farm $3,000 per ostrich to slaughter and restock, what's to stop another group of ducks from flying by and infecting the new group of ostriches?

The ostriches who survived prior H5N1 infection are likely to have some degree of immunity compared with a new group of ostriches. In the absence of surveillance testing, preventing severe illness could make the detection of future H5N1 infections more difficult.

However, overall the fact that H5N1 is now endemic in wild birds makes the public health benefit of killing these ostriches much smaller.

Yes, it's an emotional issue. And rightly so. We are talking about killing beautiful animals that have emotions, feelings and personalities. On its website Universal Ostrich shows pictures of the ostriches and describes each of their unique personalities. These ostriches want to live — and they don’t care if the reason they are killed is for purported public health benefits or for the taste of their meat.

Sometimes, in life, killing is necessary. As much as we may not want to think about the details, our current food system involves killing many animals on a mass scale. Arguably, that system and the breeding and confining of hundreds of ostriches in B.C. for their meat or eggs are far outside of the necessary natural circle of life.

We do need self-defence measures from influenza, like biosecurity and vaccination. But we don’t always need to resort to killing. The situation is complex and demands careful, moral and scientific consideration.

The ostriches on that B.C. farm, like all animals, should be treated with respect and spared from unnecessary slaughter. Exceptions to culling should be considered.