Replies to post #551254 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[newmedman]

I never followed that story closely but I had read somewhere about them wanting to bring the birds to Florida and the reason for it. I didn't know about the crazy farm owners but I definitely thought it was odd that we cancelled cancer research though it was a priority to study some infected(or not) birds that Canada was going to cull.

Both RFK and OZ are out of their minds.

Here's a real Ozzy we can get behind though....

Introducing Ozzy! This prehensile-tailed porcupine, Zoo Boise's newest resident, is already becoming a star. 🌠 Settling into the renovated Small Animal Kingdom's Rainforest Building, Ozzy likes to nimbly climb and flip around his habitat’s canopy. 📷: Lead zookeeper Taylor S

— Zoo Boise (@zooboise.bsky.social) 2025-11-05T15:05:07.825Z

I was going to post him last week but I never found the right spot to place him.

[fuagf]

Amazing, intended to make this a short excerpt, but as the fascination built just didn't stop... and wow, do i share your concern

"Did you follow the story of the Canadian ostriches?. Has OstriGrow been lost to the world of baldness research?"

i could even have come to a Warren Beatty look maybe. Or Jack Nicholson. Gee...

Anyway, the much more than intended excerpt:

Partnering with Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, a Japanese researcher known as “Dr. Ostrich,” they dreamed of turning those egg-derived antibodies into biomedical and cosmetic products, among them OstriGrow to combat baldness, OstriTrim to curb hunger and OstriClear for acne.

But near the end of 2024, the miracle cure birds started getting sick.

The ostrich pens at Universal Ostrich Farms sat next to a pond where wild ducks would stop to rest. It’s almost certain, according to the CFIA, that those ducks, drawn into the pens to nibble on food left out for the ostriches, were carrying H5N1, and while they ate and pooped among the flock, they passed on the virus.

When you own a farm and your birds start showing signs of avian flu, when they look lethargic or swollen, when they cough or sneeze or tremor or have diarrhea or drop dead, as 30 of the birds at Universal Ostrich Farms did in December, you are required to report it to CFIA. Espersen and Bilinski did not. Instead, an anonymous tip brought the agency to the farm, where agents swabbed two of the carcasses for testing. The CFIA said the tests confirmed that they were infected with bird flu, so the agency declared the farm an “Infected Place” and gave Espersen and Bilinski a month to dispose of the rest of the exposed flock.

A word about bird flu: Scientists have warned that H5N1 could be the virus that starts the next pandemic. For wild birds, it’s been devastating. On its own, bird flu poses a smaller threat to us, but when humans do get it, the results can be severe; last November, a 13-year-old Canadian girl almost died. But the greater danger for humanity is when bird flu mixes with the ordinary seasonal kind — a real possibility as temperatures drop and flu season starts. In that rare collision, a process called reassortment can occur, which means the two flus trade genetic material and create something new and more contagious.

Online and in real life, the ostriches had become symbols of defiance — and the farm a destination for conspiracists, fringe media, and animal lovers.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is tasked with controlling the spread of bird flu, and its policy, known as stamping out, says that when a farm is infected, any potentially exposed birds are slaughtered (culled, in farmspeak) and the government pays the farmer to restock with new birds.

Culling is an unpleasant but necessary business, according to the CFIA, to stop outbreaks and maintain international trade agreements that undergird a $6.8 billion poultry industry. But in the case of the ostriches, it was more complicated. Ostriches are classified as poultry by the CFIA, but they’re not chickens. A single ostrich may be worth thousands of dollars and live up to 70 years, meaning the loss of 400 could ruin the farm. And unlike chickens, which are likely to die from bird flu, ostriches are more resilient to the virus.

Unlike Covid-19 in humans, avian flu is less severe for older ostriches. But the owners of Universal Ostrich Farms claimed the fact that their older ostriches survived was evidence of something special. Espersen and Bilinski argued that their flock was now immune and, what’s more, that their ostrich eggs contained antibodies capable of detecting and treating all kinds of viruses, from Covid to avian flu. The farmers contended that they should qualify for a “rare and valuable genetics” exemption from the cull. To qualify, the farm was asked to submit documents proving the ostriches’ economic or genetic importance, as well as evidence of biosafety measures taken to separate the healthy birds from the exposed ones.

When the Universal Ostrich Farms provided neither, CFIA denied its request. And the birds kept dying. By mid-January, 69 ostriches were dead of suspected flu, leaving about 300 from the original flock.

Instead of complying with the CFIA orders, the farmers took the agency to court, managing to stall the cull for months through a series of granted stays as the case wound its way through the justice system. By August, Espersen and Bilinski seemed to have exhausted their options after a federal appeals court ruled that despite its “considerable sympathy” for the farmers, it was not the role of the court to make, change or grant exemptions from government policies.


Espersen, right, the co-owner of Universal Ostrich Farms, speaks with supporters with her daughter, Katie Pasitney, on Sept. 22, 2025, at the farm in Edgewood, British Columbia.Aaron Hemens / The Canadian Press via AP

As the sun rose over the Universal Ostrich Farms on Sept. 22, a convoy of CFIA trucks and Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruisers rolled down the farm’s gravel road. They’d come with a warrant to take possession of the farm, expel the farmers and start the preparation for culling hundreds of ostriches.

Katie Pasitney was ready on Facebook Live, broadcasting the scene to tens of thousands of followers.

Pretty and quick to tears, Karen Espersen’s daughter had been the face of the farm since the spring, appearing in countless media interviews and hundreds of livestreams, her hair usually swept up in a signature trucker hat to protect from the sun and the wobble of ostriches — constantly, and affectionately, she insisted — pecking at her head.

“Here come the RCMP, the killers that have no appreciation for life,” Pasitney narrated. “This is a plea out to the world. Stop this massacre from happening.”

“They know something’s wrong,” Pasitney said, gesturing toward the field of wandering ostriches and calling them by name, birds like Freedom, and Charlie (named after Charlie Kirk).

Pasitney’s followers lit up the comments in all-capped panic. The farm’s supporters had spent months streaming, posting and rallying behind the birds; now the flock seemed just moments from execution. Online and in real life, the ostriches had become symbols of defiance — and the farm a destination for conspiracists, fringe media, animal lovers, and anyone looking for a cause.

Far-right and anti-vaccine groups urged followers to visit over the summer, and they came, setting up tents, camping on the property and filming around the clock. Veterans of the “Freedom Convoy,” the 2022 protest that gridlocked Ottawa, Ontario, for weeks over Covid restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, became fixtures at the farm. They held fundraisers and outdoor concerts at which attendees donned ostrich costumes. A far-right preacher, convicted in 2022 for inciting convoy protesters to block an Alberta border crossing, baptized visitors in the neighboring river.

Canada’s right-wing outlet Rebel News dispatched multiple reporters, and at one point a helicopter, to the farm. As it had with truckers before, Rebel framed the dispute as a standoff between farmers and a totalitarian Canadian state. Its website launched a Save the Ostriches! fundraising campaign, next to others like Trans Madness! and Guard the Border!

It’s unclear how much Rebel raised from the ostriches. Separately, the farm raised at least 300,000 Canadian dollars via three online fundraisers.

And as attention grew, so did the claims. By summer, the farmers were telling Rebel News that their ostrich eggs could cure Covid but that they had been silenced.

“That’s why they want them dead,” Pasitney said on a livestream in September. “Because Big Pharma would lose billions of dollars … because you might not have to take as much medication, you might not need your vaccination if you actually just build up your own antibodies with big, beautiful ostrich antibodies.”

‘We should not be killing them, we should be studying them!’

When we spoke over the summer, Pasitney said she saw the ostriches as something bigger than just birds.

“If it was another chicken, we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “But because they’re ostriches and they’re resilient, like humanity should be, people see themselves in them.”

She wiped her eyes, wet again with tears. “They are the Trojan horse,” she said. “And the leader in this war — a war for change.”

Her message caught on in the U.S., helped in no small part by grocery store magnate and GOP megadonor John Catsimatidis, an animal lover who took up the farm’s cause and poured $50,000 into its legal defense fund, promising that he and his friends would “write a check” for whatever else Pasitney needed.

“He’s become like a grandfather to me,” Pasiney said of the billionaire.

In April, Catsimatidis enlisted the help of his government by way of a friend, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he’d known since Kennedy’s days as an environmental activist cleaning up the Hudson River. Kennedy is well known for his interesting history with wild animals, especially birds; he’s a skilled falconer, befriends wild ravens and kept a backyard pet emu named Toby until it was killed by a California mountain lion. As expected, Kennedy was an eager recruit, sending Catsimatidis photos of himself with ostriches to seal the deal, the billionaire said.

“We should not be killing them, we should be studying them!” Kennedy said on Catsimatidis’ radio show. “I support you 100%. I’m horrified by the idea that they’re going to kill these animals.”

The next month Kennedy, along with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, got on a call with CFIA President Paul MacKinnon to pitch their solution. If Canada spared the ostriches, the NIH and FDA would partner with CFIA to test the animals and then use them in yet-to-be designed research. In a letter posted to X after the call, Kennedy wrote, “We believe significant scientific knowledge may be garnered from following the ostriches in a controlled environment at the Universal Ostrich Farm.” When CFIA declined, Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, offered to rehome the flock at his Florida ranch.

Because they’re ostriches and they’re resilient, like humanity should be,
people see themselves in them.”
Farmer Katie Pasitney said

Reconsidering the cull now that the birds had stopped dying and the risk had become more stable wasn’t totally unreasonable. Dr. Scott Weese, an infectious-disease veterinarian at the University of Guelph, wrote about the farm on his blog, Worms & Germs, before quitting due to threats and harassment. Early on, he’d argued that a compromise might be possible.

“In a perfect world, we test all the birds,” Weese told me. “If they’re all negative, maybe they should be fined, substantially for the risks they’re putting everyone through, and for ignoring rules. Then rehome the birds.”

But, ticking off the farm’s sins, Weese likened the owners to a drunk driver who, on an impaired drive back home, almost kills someone but makes it to the driveway safely: They failed to report the infection at the start and had been uncooperative with CFIA since, they disregarded quarantine orders, and they invited a convoy to the farm while it was under quarantine. In short, Weese said, “They’ve broken every basic concept of infection control.”

Given the farm’s lax biosecurity, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said that testing the ostriches, as the farm owners demanded, would have come at enormous cost and effort, and even then would be unlikely to yield clear answers. Beyond those hurdles, Rasmussen said, the farmers’ recent comments villainizing the CFIA and spinning conspiracy theories about the agency’s motives suggested they would just reject testing results that didn’t fit their beliefs.

“The only way to really be sure,” she said, “is to cull them all.”

Rasmussen’s interviews were clipped, reposted and dissected on Pasitney’s Facebook page and by right-wing creators, including David Freiheit, a Canadian lawyer known online as Viva Frei, who called the CFIA a “Soviet-style, state-sanctioned terrorist organization.”

The emails and calls poured in afterward. “YOU are the definition of EVIL,” a typical email to Rasmussen read.

It wasn’t just the experts. The farm had trouble garnering support from other mainstream sources. President Donald Trump, whom supporters had begged to intervene, made no mention of the ostriches during a White House meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney in October. And while it was no surprise that the liberal Canadian prime minister refused to hear their cause, even the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre — who had once championed conspiratorial anti-government causes including their trucker convoy — was quiet on the ostriches, opting only to criticize the CFIA’s “mismanagement.”

VIDEO - Trump slaps new 10% tariff on Canada over Reagan TV ad spat 08:33

Animal rights organizations like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals didn’t respond to their calls for assistance either. The BC Poultry Association was no help. Famed research organization the Charles Darwin Foundation and Indigenous communities had to publicly debunk the farm’s claims that they backed its fight.

Even neighbors were organized against it. Twenty-six of the village of Edgewood’s 235 residents shared their grievances with CTV News: about the farm’s biosecurity practices and the hullabaloo the summer of protests had caused in their small community.

“It’s like living next to Chernobyl,” said one cattle farmer.

‘Why, Daddy, why did you kill the ostriches?’

Back at the farm, it wasn’t a standoff in the American mold (this was still Canada, after all) but even without guns, it wasn’t entirely peaceful.

Volunteers cooked meals for the expelled farmers and their visitors, and at night there was fellowship under a white revival tent. Pasitney provided the morale with nighttime karaoke parties and fireside hangouts. One night they were all treated to the vocal stylings of an orange-jumpsuited Elvis tribute artist.