Lucas Robinson de Vancouver made a 575 -kilometer trip to the east to the small community of Edgewood, BC, with fillets, hamburgers, watermelon and his dog.
The truck driver said that he felt the responsibility of protecting the almost 400 ostriches owned by universal ostrich farms that were ordered sacrificed after a long judicial battle that attracted international attention to the small community inside the south of BC.
“I Don’t Know All The Ins And Outs. in Kelowna, BC, on a stop in his journey
“They are happening more, and they will sacrifice those birds on my body.”
The Federal Court of Appeal rejected on Thursday the bet of the farm to avoid the sacrifice that was originally ordered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency last December after two dead birds on the property gave positive for the H5N1 avian flu. Since then, several dozen ostriches have died.
But the farm lawyer said Friday that they are still having the hope that the main court of Canada will hear the case, and a spokesman has urged supporters to converge on the farm to protect birds.
The Sacrifice Order has attracted the opposition of US officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the former television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is now the administrator of the US centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. He also led protesters to camp at the farm earlier this summer.
A total of 69 birds died on the farm in December and January, and although the farmers say that the flock is now healthy, the CFIA says that the sacrifice is necessary because the exposed flocks create an opportunity for the virus to get.
The lawyer Umar Sheikh said in an interview that he was working with Universal Ostrich Farms in a request before the Supreme Court of Canada for another stay of the sacrifice, waiting for a request for permission to appeal.
He acknowledged that the threshold that the Superior Court listens to a case is high and said it was too early to discuss what arguments they intend to do.
“In general, it is a very high threshold. You have to look for a license and the license application, in itself, is quite significant in terms of a job,” he said.
The Supreme Court of Canada only listens to cases that it considers of public importance and having national importance.
A BC Ostrich farm has lost its case to save its birds from a sacrifice order issued by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in January. A Federal Court has rejected the appeal of the farm to avoid the sacrifice of its flock, which had been infected with the avian flu. The owners of the farm say they will not give up, and have asked the supporters to meet them this weekend to “face destruction and relieve love.”
Statistics in their latest annual report show that the Court received 526 permission requests to appeal in 2024 and only 32 applications were granted that year.
Meanwhile, the farm supporters, such as Robinson, say they go to the property to show support.
The spokeswoman for the farm, Katie Pasitney, whose co -ownership mother of the property had asked the supporters to property and “sit with animals that need protection” of the sacrifice.
She has said that Canada needs to “get up” against the move, but encouraged protesters to be “peaceful.”
In an interview on Friday, Pasitney said he was not asking people to physically stop the sacrifice.
“At this time we are asking people to come and support us as a family and a farm that fights by Canadians,” he said.
“We are asking for the cooperation of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, so that they work with us, not against us. We are not a flock of commercial corral birds. We are a research flock. They are non -flying animals in quarantine due to their geographical location 135 kilometers away from an important city,” he added.
“We have not raised any threat, and we continue to maintain what these animals need the right and deserve the right to be proven.”
Publications in a group of social networks administered by Pasitney showed the people who said they were reserving flights or leading to the property.
Others suggested a convoy or appealed to officials in the United States so that birds move there.
However, a spokesman for the Federal Minister of Health, Marjorie Michel, said Friday that he had not been in contact with any counterpart from the United States.
Robinson, who said he grew up around a horsepower in Ladner, said he had a “very loving connection” with animals.
“And these ostriches are iconic and majestic birds … These things live decades and have personalities,” he said.
Pasitney said he feels hope and pain.
“We have pride in our ostriches for the resistance and sadness that their survival means so little for those in power and bureaucracy that controls the country,” he said.
The CFIA has said that there are “continuous risks” for animal and human health, as well as access to the export market for Canadian goods.
He says in a statement about the decision of the Court of Appeals that will not discuss the operational plans, but in an update of May 30 that remains on its website, he says that “he continues to plan human depopulation with veterinary supervision in the infected facilities.”
