The Canada Agricultural Evaluate Tribunal has upheld a $10,000 high quality handed to the British Columbia ostrich farm whose flock of greater than 300 birds was culled final fall, practically 11 months after the affirmation of an avian influenza outbreak.
The Canadian Meals Inspection Company issued the high quality alleging Common Ostrich Farms violated the Well being of Animals Act by failing to report sick and dying birds on the property in southeastern B.C. in December 2024.
The tribunal’s resolution says the CFIA was as a substitute alerted by an nameless caller saying they believed the ostriches had been sick with avian flu on Dec. 28 that yr.
The choice posted on-line and dated Dec. 11, 2025, says the farm requested the tribunal evaluate the CFIA’s violation discover, arguing it “did its finest” given the house owners thought the ostriches had a non-reportable illness and so they had tried to succeed in no less than two veterinarians who weren’t out there on the time.
However tribunal chair Emily Crocco discovered the farm, co-owned by Karen Espersen and Dave Bilinski, was negligent in its responsibility beneath the federal laws.
The choice says the farmers purport to be consultants in ostrich well being and welfare, and knew their birds had been sick, “but they didn’t train the identical stage of adherence to the (legislation) {that a} moderately prudent particular person would have achieved in an analogous scenario.”
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The CFIA operates a “Sick Hen Line” that anybody can name so as to report a diseased fowl to a veterinary inspector, Crocco wrote.
“All of the (farm) needed to do was instantly make a name to that cellphone quantity and inform them of any of the information indicating the potential presence of a reportable illness.”
In doing so, the farm would have met its obligations beneath federal legislation, the choice says.
On the identical day the CFIA obtained the nameless tip, it says veterinarian Dr. Erica Robertson known as Bilinski to inform him what the company had heard.
In her notes from the dialog, the tribunal resolution says Bilinski indicated the climate had turned “unhealthy” about three weeks earlier and birds started falling ailing.
He stated about 5 per cent of the flock of greater than 400 birds had died over three weeks.
The choice says that in an affidavit to the tribunal dated Oct. 1, 2025, Bilinski acknowledged the farmers didn’t assume the ostriches had avian influenza as a result of their signs had been the identical as when the flock had had an an infection known as “pseudomonas” in 2020.
The signs in December 2024 included watery eyes, white nodules behind the ostriches’ mouths and “coughing up white chunks,” in addition to despair and lethargy, it says. There was additionally increased mortality amongst youthful birds.
The tribunal resolution says “it’s a reality” that watery eyes, despair and excessive mortality amongst younger ostriches are signs of avian flu.
On Dec. 30, 2024, the CFIA took swabs from two lately deceased ostriches and the subsequent day, check outcomes got here again optimistic for the virus. The cull was ordered 41 minutes later.
The tribunal resolution provides there was no proof the veterinarians the farmers tried to succeed in earlier that month had been veterinary inspectors as outlined by the Well being of Animals Act.
Crocco notes within the resolution that she didn’t agree with the CFIA’s assertion that the farm’s violation in failing to report sick ostriches was intentional.
Nevertheless it was “however, definitely negligent,” she wrote.
Crocco says she discovered the violation “may have led to severe or widespread hurt to human or animal well being.”
The cull order prompted the farmers to launch a battle in courtroom and on social media in an effort to avoid wasting the birds.
Marksmen used rifles to hold out the slaughter in drenching rain on Nov. 6, after the Supreme Courtroom of Canada dominated it might not hear the case.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
