May 18 2025

The Ostrich Cull Was Never About a Virus

admin Food Security, Sovereignty, The Canadian Corner

By Peter J. Merrick, TEP® and Adrian C. Spitters, CFP®, co-authors of the international bestseller It Starts With Gold™ and the forthcoming book Guns, Gold & Land™

This analysis continues a series of long-form investigations published in The Merrick Spitters Reset Report™

How a Quiet B.C. Farm Now Faces Erasure Over Food, Medicine, and Freedom

The urgent themes discussed in this article are expanded upon in our #1 international best-selling book, It Starts With Gold™, co-authored by Peter J. Merrick and Adrian C. Spitters. In the book, we reveal how global institutions, government agencies, and corporate powers work to eliminate decentralized, natural, and affordable alternatives that challenge their control over health, food, and money. Visit www.ItStartsWithGold.com.

A Flock of Ostriches, a Storm of Questions

In the remote community of Edgewood, British Columbia, a family-run ostrich farm remains under threat. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has issued an order to destroy nearly 399 healthy ostriches still alive on the farm. This directive came after a limited outbreak of what was reported as H5N1 avian flu in late December 2024. Two ostriches initially died. Another 40, mostly juveniles, followed. But then something remarkable happened.

The remaining 90% of the flock recovered. They didn’t just survive, they stabilized and thrived.

Despite clear signs of natural immunity, strict quarantine procedures, and extensive documentation, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency continues to pursue its mandate: kill every last bird. On May 13, 2025, a federal court upheld the agency’s cull order. But the ostriches remain alive, protected by the perseverance of the farm’s owners, growing international public outcry, and a growing national debate over the direction of Canadian agriculture and health policy.

This isn’t about containing a virus. It’s about controlling the narrative and eliminating anything that threatens to challenge it.

Natural Immunity Was the Real Threat

Each ostrich egg produces an extraordinary volume of antibodies, comparable to the output of 800 rabbits. These antibodies have been studied for their ability to neutralize various alleged viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. During the COVID-19 crisis, Japanese hospitals even trialled antiviral masks and nasal sprays made using ostrich antibodies, with promising results.

Edgewood’s ostriches were part of this global antibody research effort. That is what makes their survival and their potential so disruptive.

These birds represent a cheap, natural, unpatentable alternative to the pharmaceutical industry’s newest messenger RNA (mRNA) – based medical technologies. Their survival is inconvenient, their immunity is unprofitable, and their destruction appears to be more about removing a competitor than protecting public health.

Reports suggest that while Japanese researchers initially advanced ostrich antibody treatments, including antiviral masks and nasal sprays, those trials did not lead to widespread deployment. The Edgewood farm’s own antibody research was the most directly affected. According to the farm’s owners, their partnership with a Quebec-based lab ended abruptly after the lab was acquired. Katie Pasitney, daughter of farm owner Karen Espersen, stated that the new management appeared uninterested in continuing or publicizing the work, and the project was effectively silenced under a non-disclosure agreement. She described the situation as “sinister,” implying deliberate suppression of their findings. The pattern is becoming clear: if a solution cannot be patented, monopolized, or folded into a centralized agenda, it is sidelined or buried.

Independent Science Was Forbidden

The Edgewood family didn’t resist testing. They welcomed it. But when they asked to send samples to an independent third-party lab, they were threatened by Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials with severe penalties. According to reports, the agency warned them that doing so could result in a $200,000 fine and up to six months in jail. The message was unmistakable: only government-approved science would be tolerated. This aggressive stance against third-party verification raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and whether the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is protecting public health or defending something else entirely. Why the hostility toward verification? Why the fear of independent evidence?

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency also questioned the family about their antibody work, odd behaviour for an agency supposedly focused only on containment. These are not the actions of regulators seeking clarity. They are the actions of gatekeepers protecting a monopoly.

This isn’t about whether the science is right. It’s about who is allowed to do the science. The government has chosen a side, and it is not the one that includes family-run farms creating natural solutions outside the reach of corporate interests.

The Evidence That Demands More Answers

Independent biostatistician Christine Massey has compiled over 200 Freedom of Information responses from major health institutions around the world, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), and others. Her request: produce any record showing that the H5N1 virus has been isolated and purified directly from infected animal tissue using established scientific protocols.

Every institution failed to produce evidence. No one could verify the virus’s existence through direct purification. Yet these unverified models are used to justify killing livestock, shutting down farms, and silencing alternatives.

If H5N1 cannot be scientifically confirmed, then the basis for these culls collapses. And yet, the order still stands.

Poultry Producers Are the Canary in the Cage

Over 11 million birds have been culled in Canada since 2021, often based on single test results. Entire barns, operating under strict biosecurity, have been wiped out with no path for farmers to appeal or verify results.

Edgewood is not the exception. It is the next in line.

Farmers across Canada now live with the risk that their entire operation could be destroyed by a regulatory decision backed by incomplete science and no accountability. And for those raising livestock that falls outside the industrial system, the risk is even higher.

When ostriches, raised outdoors and completely removed from the poultry supply chain, are targeted with the same force as factory chicken farms, it becomes clear: this isn’t about food safety. It’s about eliminating independence.

The True Agenda: Control Over Life Itself

This is about more than birds. It is about a system that no longer tolerates competition.

Natural health solutions, sovereign food production, and independent science are being attacked on every front. Whether through pandemic narratives, environmental regulations, or biosecurity enforcement, the goal is always the same: centralize control, remove alternatives, and erase the individuals who resist.

The birds at Edgewood are still alive. For now.

But they stand as symbols of everything the system wants to destroy: resilience, independence, and truth.

Before the Next Farm Falls

The Edgewood ostriches may yet be culled. But until that day comes, they remain a living rejection of the narrative. Their survival is not just a matter of animal welfare. It is a symbol of resilience, a stand for common sense, and a line in the sand against institutional overreach.

This is no longer a local issue. It is not just a Canadian issue. This is a global crisis unfolding in real time. Farmers across the world, from the Netherlands to New Zealand, from India to the American Midwest, are being pushed to the brink. Bureaucrats, corporate cartels, and global institutions are working in lockstep to dismantle decentralized agriculture, eliminate independent producers, and replace natural food systems with digitized, controlled, and commodified substitutes.

To every farmer, whether you raise poultry or cattle, grow grain or vegetables, this is your call to action. The assault on Edgewood is not unique. It is part of a broader pattern: isolate, regulate, depopulate. One by one, governments are forcing compliance through false emergencies, manufactured outbreaks, and restrictive protocols that serve centralized agendas. What is happening to Edgewood could happen to your farm, in your country, under your flag, at any time.

Your survival is at stake. Your ability to produce food without interference is under threat. Global food security hangs in the balance and it is being dismantled one farm, one regulation, and one cull at a time.

Now is the time to raise your voice, question the narrative, demand transparency, reject policies that weaken food independence and embolden monopolies, and stand together, across borders, as a united front of producers who refuse to be erased.

The future of independent agriculture depends on what happens next. Edgewood’s ostriches still live. Their immunity is real. Their potential is untapped. Their story is not over, and neither is ours.

In It Starts With Gold™, we expose how financial and health systems are being weaponized against individual autonomy and how to protect yourself before the next phase of control begins. Precious metals are part of that solution, but so are strong communities, decentralized food, and independent science.

Let this be a turning point. Let the survival of these birds awaken the survival instinct in us all.

To find out more, order your own copy of It Starts With Gold™ on Amazon today. CLICK HERE

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