After losing all of their animals, Universal Ostrich Farm must also pay a $10,000 fine.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued the fine and violation to the Edgewood farm after it failed to report an outbreak in the approximately 400 bird herd in December of 2024.
The entire flock was ultimately killed due to the outbreak, but the farm contested the violation notice and attached fine with the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal.
Tribunal chairperson Emily Crocco upheld the decision in her Dec. 11, 2025 review.
Under the Health of Animals Act, “a person who owns or has the possession, care or control of an animal shall notify the nearest veterinary inspector of the presence of a reportable disease or toxic substance, or any fact indicating its presence, in or around the animal, immediately after the person becomes aware of the presence or fact.”
According to the decision, the farm did not report the illness when ostriches started dying and showing symptoms.
Instead, it was an anonymous phone call to the CFIA’s Sick Bird Line on Dec. 28, 2024 that reported the ostriches were believed to have avian influenza (AI).
The same day, a CFIA veterinarian called farm co-owner David Bilinski to let him know about the information received.
On Dec. 30 the CFIA visited the farm and took swabs from two of the ostriches that had recently died. On Dec. 31, the swabs tested positive for subtype H5 of AI.
In his affidavit to the Tribunal, Bilinski said they did not think that the ostriches had AI because their symptoms were the same as when the flock had had an infection called pseudomonas in 2020.
“However, I do not agree with the respondent that the applicant’s (farm’s) violation was intentional. The violation was, nevertheless, certainly negligent,” said Crocco.
“The applicant knew that its birds were sick. It observed several symptoms in their birds that are symptoms of AI in ostriches. The applicant’s owners purport to be experts in ostrich health and welfare. And yet they failed to exercise the same level of adherence to the Health Authority Act that a reasonably prudent person would have done in a similar situation.”