Zimbabwe News Update
bbc
5 min read
The arrival of men in hazmat suits spelled the end for more than 300 ostriches in British Columbia, whose fate was the subject of a months-long legal battle in Canada that attracted an unlikely cast of supporters, including an American grocery billionaire, Canadian anti-Covid mandate activists and US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.Dr Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor and member of Trump’s administration, even offered to adopt the birds – but to no avail.On Thursday evening, gunshots rang out from the hay bale enclosure where the birds were corralled.
Katie Pasitney, whose family owns the farm, told the BBC on Friday morning that the she believes the ostriches were killed overnight.”Shame on you Canada,” said Pasitney earlier in a tearful video posted to her Facebook.”The world is watching.”
The ostriches were ordered to be culled late last year after two had tested positive for the avian flu, or H5N1, following an outbreak that killed 69.Owners of the farm, which had raised the ostriches for slaughter but used them for medical research in recent years, had exhausted all legal options to stop the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) order, with the battle reaching all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.The top court dismissed the case on Thursday morning, effectively allowing the cull to go ahead. Lower courts had sided with federal officials, ruling they are acting reasonably within their mandate to protect public health.Dozens had gathered at Universal Ostrich Farms on Thursday afternoon to protest the ostriches’ imminent execution.
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