Katie Pasitney’s voice trembles as she describes the news her family received from a high-ranking government source: the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is preparing to move on their ostrich farm for a cull within days, not weeks.
“We have the information from an extremely credible source higher up,” Pasitney said during a Tuesday morning interview.
She’s been told a Vancouver and Surrey task force is being assembled to assist the CFIA in the destruction of the nearly 400 birds.
“He told us to get mentally prepared,” she said. “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is choosing destruction over discovery.”
The Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, has been locked in a nine-month battle with the agency over the cull order.
The ordeal has escalated into an international controversy that has drawn support from high-ranking U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz, and the Trump administration.
The family argues their ostriches have developed natural immunity after surviving the initial outbreak, with 231 days passing without any symptoms of illness. They’ve proposed innovative solutions, including reclassifying ostriches from poultry to red meat flightless birds, which could remove them from strict poultry regulations.
Pasitney criticizes what she sees as bureaucratic inflexibility, describing the situation as “a precedence war” where the CFIA fears setting a precedent that other farmers might challenge their authority. The farm has received collaboration offers from the FDA and NIH, but Canadian authorities remain unmoved.
“We’re not a commercial poultry farm,” Pasitney emphasized.
The legal battle reached a crucial point during a recent appeal hearing in Ottawa in July. But in late August, the Federal Court of Appeal rejected the farm’s bid to prevent the cull, which was originally ordered by the agency last December.
Located 135 kilometers from the nearest major city, the farm argues its geographic isolation minimizes any public health risk. The family has been prohibited from independently testing their birds, further frustrating their efforts to prove the animals’ health.
International support has poured in from unexpected quarters. The Trump administration, Dr. Oz, and RFK Jr. have all expressed concern, with Kennedy writing two letters supporting the farm’s research initiatives.
“I’m asking from Trump, from people like even Elon Musk, just speak out,” Pasitney pleaded. “This isn’t about optics anymore, and this isn’t about precedence. This is about doing the right thing.”
The CFIA said the cull is necessary because exposed flocks create an opportunity for the virus to mutate.
On it’s website, the agency said “specific operational plans and dates will not be shared with the public in advance.”
As enforcement appears imminent, the family refuses to surrender what they see as decades of scientific progress and irreplaceable genetic resources.
“We’re not surrendering family. We’re a fighting family,” Pasitney declared. “There’s still time for them to do the right thing.”
