13/11/2025
The Silence After the Storm
A Farmer’s Heartbreak as Hundreds of Ostriches Culled
Declaration of Dumfries
Nov 13, 2025
Guest article by Mairi Allan (Link to Substack in comments)
It was a sad day for Canada after the needless slaughter of beautiful, healthy ostriches on a farm in British Columbia. May the nation learn from this tragedy, and may these innocent souls rest peacefully.
After a year-long fight, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would not hear Universal Ostrich Farms vs. Canada Food Inspection Agency. So, the authorities took it upon themselves to enter the farm and slay over 300 healthy animals.
A year-long saga has come to a grim end after “professional marksmen” were hired and opened fire on 330 ostriches, in what opponents of the cull branded a “massacre.”
Canadian health authorities used snipers to cull the ostriches on a farm in British Columbia over avian flu concerns, ending a year-long effort to save the birds by the farm’s owners and supporters, who claimed the animals were healthy.
The saga of Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, BC, had become a cause célèbre in right-wing and anti-government circles online, and had even attracted the attention of members of Donald Trump’s administration, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed on Friday that it had culled the birds, which had been corralled into a makeshift enclosure of hay bales. Gunshots rang out on Thursday night, hours after the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would not hear an appeal of the cull by the farm’s owners.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) kept members of the public at bay, as shouts of “Stop!” and “Murderers!” rang out while the cull of the quarantined animals proceeded.
“You’ll have to ask your children, ‘Why, Daddy, why did you kill the ostriches?’” one woman screamed at the marksmen. “Will you tell them you were ‘just following orders’?”
The farm’s owners had sought leave to appeal the August 21 decision by the Federal Court of Appeal but were denied by the country’s highest court.
The CFIA first issued the cull order in December last year after an alleged outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) resulted in the deaths of 69 birds.
Supporters insisted the remaining animals were healthy and might even hold potential for disease research — a claim echoed by Mr. Kennedy, who weighed in on the case in May, urging the Canadian government to reconsider.
Katie Pasitney, the spokesperson for Universal Ostrich Farms, told CNN that the cull was “traumatising.”
“There’s nothing professional or humane about putting almost 330 birds in a square pen in the dark of night and shooting at them,” she said.
Hundreds of beating hearts gone. This is a battle over life versus death — of animals that were never tested and posed no threat to anyone — just the wickedness of man showing his power and lack of respect for what life means.
The fields will now be silent and empty. This is traumatic for everyone invested in the ostriches and what they symbolised. As I write this, I’m so sorry for those beautiful birds, and for the cruelty of humans.
Over 800 shots were fired. That means it took multiple shots to kill each of these approximately 300-pound, beautiful animals. They panicked; they suffered. Their owners were left helpless and traumatised by each sound that rang out in the night. Ostriches are not easy to kill. They are giant, prehistoric creatures — the fastest animals on two legs — and when spooked, they run blindly with their wings outstretched.
What happened to the ostriches was not just wrong; it was violence against innocence. It was cruelty done with coldness, and that kind of cruelty shakes the spirit.
People are not crying “just for the birds.” They are crying for everything this cruelty symbolises: the betrayal of trust in a country they once believed was fair; the violation of people who loved and cared deeply for those creatures; the sickness of systems that have forgotten compassion; the realisation that something precious — humanity — is being eroded at an alarming rate.
We cannot let them die in vain. It’s ironic that this dreadful event happened on Remembrance Day weekend, when we bow our heads in respect to honour the men of courage who died to give us the right to live in our country. And yet there are people with no morals who would walk into a field of animals and murder them the way they did.
What if that was a field of dogs? These snipers should’ve quit their jobs before doing that. They say they had a job to do so they could afford to feed their children. Their children need a parent with morals more than they need food.
Flanders Fields are full of men with morals, courage, and integrity — men who are spinning in their graves, watching these pathetic individuals do what they did in a free country where they were fully free to just walk away and have the courage to say, “I’m not going to do this.” But they chose to do it regardless.
Shame on you, Heath MacDonald (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food). Shame on you, Marjorie Michel (Minister of Health). And shame on you, Mark Carney (Prime Minister). It’s a shame on all of humanity, really. Those birds knew love, safety, routine, and gentleness. They had relationships, memories, and bonds. They trusted the hands that fed and touched them. And in their last hours, they were surrounded not by love, but by terror.
By Mairi Allan
DoD
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