A Canadian ostrich farm loses a long legal battle to prevent the slaughter of its birds, despite RFK Jr.’s petition.

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday unanimously dismissed a last-minute appeal brought by an ostrich farm in British Columbia to save its flock of hundreds of birds. The government issued a cull order for the farm’s livestock last year, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it would move to kill the ostriches to prevent a bird flu outbreak.

“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will move forward to complete depopulation and elimination measures authorized by the Animal Health Act and guided by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) stamping-out policy,” the CFIA said in a statement following the court’s decision.

The CFIA did not say how the ostriches would be killed, but multiple gunshots were heard Thursday night at Universal Ostrich Farm, according to Canadian media. The gunshots could be heard on a live video stream on farm spokesperson Katie Pasitney’s Facebook page.

Pasitney made an emotional plea for the Supreme Court to rule against the cull just before Thursday’s court meeting, saying the birds were healthy and posed no threat.

“Supreme Court of Canada, they are healthy. They are all we have and everything we loved for 35 years, please stop,” he said in a video posted on social media.

It’s been almost a year since more than 300 of the farm’s ostriches became embroiled in a legal battle between the CFIA and their owners in Edgewood, British Columbia.

In early December 2024, an outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian flu virus hit the farm, causing the deaths of nearly 70 birds within a few weeks. The CFIA called the outbreak “unprecedented” and warned it could have a significant impact on Canada’s poultry industry, ordering the culling of affected birds.

“Do you want to know what pain is like?” Pasitney asked in an emotional video posted online just after Thursday’s court decision, showing her mother, the farm’s owner, crying. “She’s going to lose everything she’s loved for 35 years…that’s what pain feels like when the government fails you.”

The CFIA said it takes its responsibility to protect the health of animals and Canadians very seriously, and takes all disease control measures deemed necessary to protect health and trade.

“Given the herd’s multiple laboratory-confirmed cases of H5N1 and the current serious risks to animal and human health and trade, CFIA continues to plan for human depopulation with veterinary oversight at infected facilities,” the agency said.

The case caught the attention of the US government, and the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.along with the director of the National Institutes of Health and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, sent a letter to the CFIA director in May asking him to reconsider the cull, arguing that the ostriches could be valuable to study.

“We respectfully request that the CFIA consider not culling the entire flock of ostriches at Universal Ostrich Farm,” Kennedy’s letter said, “Given that a proportion of these ostriches were infected with avian influenza (H5N1) last year, we believe there is significant value in studying this population, for several reasons.”

In a follow-up letter in July, Kenndey urged the CFIA to delay the cull and proposed immediate collaboration between the CFIA, Canadian researchers and the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offered the farm owners the option of moving the birds to his ranch in Florida, but the offer was rejected, according to Canada’s national public broadcaster CBC.

The CFIA said it would compensate farm owners for the value of the animals, paying up to $2,200 per bird once supporting documentation was completed.