A BC ostrich cull has brought out climate conspiracies — and RFK Jr.

 When dozens of Katie Pasitney's 400-odd ostriches got sick and started dying in mid-December, the Edgewood, BC, farmer, who shares responsibility for the farm, never imagined that her herd would become a front in a far-right movement’s battle to sow mistrust in government institutions and public health measures.

Five months and 69 dead birds later, on May 13, Universal Ostrich Farm lost a months-long legal battle to stop the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) from culling the birds to prevent the spread of avian flu. The agency ordered the cull to curb an ongoing avian flu pandemic that has killed more than 8.7 million domestic birds in BC since 2022. 

That’s not how the decision was received. Supporters from around the world have donated tens of thousands of dollars to help cover the farm's legal fees. Conservative website Rebel News dedicated a campaign to the fight. On May 14, Conservative MP Scott Anderson visited the farm, posting on Facebook that he will be "formally asking the CFIA to hold off on the cull while we explore the possibility of saving the ostriches for further immunology research." 

The ostriches even got a public statement of support from US President Trump's vaccine-skeptic Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

After the court ruling, Pasitney invited supporters to flock to the farm and guard the birds against the imminent cull. Many showed up, sleeping in their vehicles on the property, said Pasitney in a Facebook Live feed on Tuesday. People commenting on the livestream said they were planning to drive to the farm from as far afield as Edmonton, AB — roughly a 10-hour drive away. 

"It's been growing massive momentum," Pasitney said. "We're fighting for the lives of our agricultural sector, and we're obviously trying to keep our animals alive in the process, to be able to use our research to help humanity." 

The ostriches are flightless and quarantined on the farm, but their story has soared. They've generated clicks and provided emotional content for the right-wing ecosystem of social media, podcasts and online content, simultaneously helping to fuel a movement that’s threatening to undo generations of scientific and social progress. 

Pasitney's life was shaped by the birds. 

"You go out there, and you see these big, majestic animals with the biggest eyes that you could ever imagine – you look at their eyes and you just see the world," she said. 

Her grandfather was the president of Alberta's ostrich association when she was young, and hoped to create a market for the flightless birds' eggs and meat. That never materialized, but the familial passion for ostriches stuck.

As other farmers ditched their birds, the family collected them for cheap to raise on the farm, she said. "We've loved those animals forever, but my mom saw the opportunity in the health benefits of these animals, and she always told us kids growing up that these animals are going to do something amazing for humanity one day." 

About three years ago, the farm partnered with Japanese veterinarian Dr. Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, who made headlines in 2021 for creating a mask coated in ostrich COVID-19 antibodies that glowed under ultraviolet light if it encountered the virus. Encouraged by the findings, they started a company to produce so-called "nutraceuticals," like nasal sprays or lozenges, infused with ostrich antibodies against viruses like bird flu or COVID-19, she said. 

Dr. Tsukamoto did not respond to a request for comment emailed to Kyoto Prefectural University.  Pasitney offered to share research backing up her claims about ostrich antibody-infused nutraceuticals with Canada's National Observer, but had not done so at the time of publication. She also said that Dr. Tsukamoto is still partnering with the farm, but "knowing we've been in this place where the government isn't supporting us, he's been quiet." 

There is no evidence that nutraceuticals infused with ostrich antibodies protect people or animals from infectious disease, but shaky science aside, the farm was operating fine until Dec. 28, 2024, when the CFIA received an anonymous tip about dead ostriches on the farm. Commercial poultry farms must report any symptomatic birds to the agency immediately for testing within hours — which the ostrich farm didn't do. 

Two agency officials showed up on the farm two days later and collected samples from two of the recently deceased birds; those samples tested positive for H5N1 avian flu, and the farm was ordered to cull its entire herd by Feb. 1, 2025. 

Under Canada's infectious disease policy, officials can declare a poultry farm infected by a virus like avian flu if they find a single positive case of it. The disease is extremely infectious, with a 100-per-cent mortality for chickens and about 52 per cent when it jumps to humans. Canada's rules align with international guidelines, which typically require poultry farmers to cull their entire herd and limit movement in and out of the farm if officials declare that a farm is infected, the CFIA wrote in a statement. 

But where the CFIA issued an order meant to protect public health, Pasitney saw a "sinister" attempt by the government — she believes acting on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry — to bury their research on ostrich immunity and antibodies. 

"We're contending … with Big Pharma, who wants us to be fully reliant on vaccinations," she said. 

"We have an opportunity here to see what would happen if we allowed the virus to burn out and allow it to just go through the flock like nature intends," she said in a Facebook Live video to supporters on May 13th.

The farm tried to block the cull, applying for a rare genetics exemption, which Pasitney says they received on Jan. 2. She says it was revoked on Jan. 10. 

In a statement, the CFIA said it never granted Universal Ostrich Farms an exemption. The agency conducted an in-depth questionnaire about the farm, which is standard practice for all farms impacted by the avian flu. Officials asked about the "farm's claim of antibody research" because it was unique and "the CFIA wanted to have a complete understanding of their activities as part of the evaluation of the [cull] request." 

Pasitney and her co-farmers soon hired lawyers, obtaining an injunction against the cull on Jan. 31 while awaiting a judicial review of the order. Lee Turner, a lawyer based in Kelowna who represented Dr. Charles Hoffe, a BC doctor who faced allegations of spreading misinformation to patients about COVID-19, is part of the farm's legal team. (The body that investigated Hoffe, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC, dropped the investigation, citing the withdrawal of the COVID state of emergency.)

The case was heard in mid-April. On May 13, a federal judge threw out the case, allowing the cull to proceed. 

Meanwhile, outside the court, the ostrich herd galvanized a network of conservative activists, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and climate deniers with a pattern of using misinformation to undermine public health measures and climate action. 

"It's kind of been spreading like wildfire because people are picking up that we're not just fighting for the ostriches, but we're fighting for everybody," Pasitney said. "We've had a global response." 

On Jan. 22, BC Rising, a loose, BC-based network of climate deniers and anti-vax advocates, who successfully paused consultations on a regional climate action plan in the Kootenays in 2023, talked about the ostrich farm's situation on its weekly livestream Facebook gathering. The group hosted a web page to support the farm on the BC Rising website and used their Facebook meetings to offer updates about the court case. 

Several of those videos — some over two hours long — were hugely popular, and despite being more than two hours long, one had been played more than 25,000 times at the time of writing. 

The story was picked up by rightwing website Rebel News, which in January posted in support of the farm and directed readers to send letters of protest to federal officials. The website has continued to follow the story, posting eight stand-alone stories about the farm and including them in regular weekly updates. Drea Humphrey, the website's BC bureau chief, consistently posted about the story on X. 

The farm's decision to go public paid off financially: the farm's "Save our Ostriches" website has received $86,281 from over 750 donors to cover legal fees as of May 14.  

Pasitney believes the outpouring of support has come because "a lot of people" are, like her, convinced government agencies like the CFIA are supporting efforts by big business to harm people. The CFIA doesn't want the farm to set a precedent where farmers "stand up and protect their animals," she said.  

"It does not just happen in Canada. This is something that is happening everywhere, and [we need] to protect our farms," she said. "It's overreach in its highest form." 

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That narrative of government overreach and regulatory authoritarianism comes as no surprise to experts on the right's nebulous online presence, who see it fueling resistance to everything from climate action to vaccines. 

"The right has done this a lot," said Hanna Morris, a professor at the University of Toronto who studies climate and fascism. Far-right media will take real concerns about government agencies making decisions that impact historically marginalized people or communities, she says, and spin them to help people, who have not faced the same kind of historical discrimination, evade collective action — like a public-health-motivated cull.  

"It's tapping into this method of weaponizing victimhood," she said. 

The conspiracy underlying Pasitney's claims emerged in the anti-lockdown and anti-vax movements that swept through Western countries during the pandemic, before fueling a movement against so-called 15-minute cities — a planning concept that describes a walkable city — in 2022 and 2023. Rightwing advocates wove it into the years-long Dutch farmer protests against climate measures, and opponents to Canada's proposed plan to reduce carbon emissions from nitrogen fertilizers also incorporated it into their battle. 

Tanner Mirrlees, a political economist at Ontario Tech University, wasn't surprised to see the fringe right embrace the ostriches' fate. 

"This is exactly the kind of emotionally charged human story that far-right populists and their propagandists love to glom onto and instrumentalize for their own political and ideological gain," he wrote in an email. 

"These far-right movements are masters of opportunism: they latch onto sympathetic, relatable, human-scale events — particularly those pitting ordinary working people against seemingly faceless government agencies — and reframe them to expand the reach of their conspiratorial ideologies. The goal isn’t to protect animal welfare; it’s to hijack the news cycle, grow their online presence and bring newbies into their fold."

The CFIA's cull order is a "textbook example" of responsible, science-based action to prevent a larger public health crisis. No one "wakes up wanting to order the slaughter of ostriches. But no one wants to wake up to the emergence of a new variant of avian flu either," he said. 

The decision by rightwing media and online personalities to paint the situation as a battle between government and farmers is "irresponsible," he said, erasing the ethically and emotionally difficult work Canada's public health officials do to protect people and animals. Pushing back on that narrative is essential: it is possible to both hold empathy for the farmers and their ostriches and defend the legitimacy of public agencies, he said. 

Pasitney pushed back on Mirrlees's argument that interest in the farm by the far-right media and social media ecosystem is an example of populist opportunism. 

"No," she said. People who have expressed support "see the bottom-line picture to save the ostriches [and] save the science," with some hoping the birds can help protect animals and people from harmful infections.

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On May 13, a federal court judge tossed out Universal Ostrich Farm's judicial review on the basis the CFIA properly followed its policies and procedures, and allowed the CFIA to complete the cull. The farm must also cover $15,000 of CFIA legal fees. 

"We are heartbroken by this outcome and uncertain about the future of our farm. As we navigate this incredibly difficult time, we ask for patience and your continued support," read a post on the farm's Save our Ostriches Facebook page. 

Speaking with Canada's National Observer a day before the decision came out, Pasitney said part of the farm's anger with the CFIA lay in how the agency interacted with them. 

"There's never been a minute where they've come here and said: 'Look, we're really sorry. We understand how painful this will be,'" she said. "If there had been a level of compassion: asking about how we're feeling, helping us through the process, not confusing us, not giving us the wrong exemption package, not misleading us … it would have been a healthier dynamic." 

Farmers that immediately comply with the CFIA's request for a cull might get more empathy, she suggested, but because they "showed a bit of a fight and resistance," they've met "nothing but harassment" from the agency. 

In a statement, the CFIA said that its officials "understand the significant emotional and mental strain that producers face when their premises are infected with avian influenza." Every farmer is assigned a case officer, and all agency employees are expected to treat producers with empathy, the statement said. Still, "an empathetic response does not mean that the applicable disease control measures will be avoided."

The CFIA has not said when it will cull the birds. However, Dan Elliott, communications coordinator for the Regional District of Central Kootenay, confirmed by email that the provincial government granted it permission to dispose of the carcasses in the Ootischenia Landfill, "if the cull happens." 

In the meantime, the farmers are calling on supporters to come help them. In a Facebook Live dated May 13, Pasitney's mother, Karen Espersen, asked people to "come and surround our farm so [the] CFIA cannot kill these beautiful, healthy animals." The farm has a huge field for camping, a fire going and outhouses, added Pasitney in a separate livestream she filmed in selfie mode while walking around the farm.

"If you do come, this is a peaceful, humble place of kindness and gratitude," she said. "We're just trying to make the biggest change with the most love. Thank you everybody."