By JGM
On Friday, “professional marksmen” in Canada gunned down almost 400 ostriches. Birds that were clearly disease free; just more victims of the Canadian government’s totalitarian overreach. Deja vu- “the truckers rally.”
As most of you know, Robert and I have a soft spot for ratites, which is the family of flightless birds that lack a sternal keel (as did dinosaurs) that ostriches belong to. In fact, our pet emu is another member of that ancient lineage of birds. There are only five groups of ratites left in the world (ostriches, emus, kiwis, cassowaries, and Rheas). They have a special place in the animal kingdom. Ratites may be the closest living relatives to the dinosaurs and truly are fascinating.
The ancestors of modern ratites originated in the Northern Hemisphere (Laurasia) during the late Early Cretaceous, approximately 105-115 million years ago.
The oldest undisputed fossils of modern forms, such as ostriches, are from the Miocene of Africa and are about 20 million years old. These birds should be cherished, they are the living heritage of the ancient past.
In truth, Ostriches are sweet, goofy birds- who are times may be a bit hormonal, but they are beloved by those who choose to be their keepers in captivity, as are emus.
Our emu is a cherished member of our family. I feel honored to be her caretaker.
Gizmo, our emu is a character She may not have two brain cells to rub together, but that doesn’t stop her from being curious and in her own way, even kind. Her best friend is our goose, and they are inseparable. We also have a fair number of peafowl (peacocks, pea-ladies, and pea-babies), eight chickens-all hens, and four quite elderly guinea fowl.
Robert and I have been working with birds almost all of our lives, and this is a shared passion. Robert got his first young parrot on his fourteenth birthday, and Chiquita the yellow fronted amazon was a beloved member of our family until she died when we were in our mid-fifties. So she lived to about forty-years of age.
As an undergrad, I studied avian sciences and ended up working on various research projects at UC Davis with their small colony of parrots. Then, while Robert was in Medical school at Northwestern in the 1980s, I worked as a zoo keeper in the bird house at the Brookfield zoo.
So, I empathize with the owners of these ostriches, to put it mildly. I couldn’t imagine government officials setting up temporary blockades made of hay (because hay bales will absorb excess gunfire) to round up all of my birds on my farm, keeping them penned up like that for who knows how long – without shelter, and then literally gunning them down in the middle of the night, while I had to listen. This is unspeakably cruel.
That gunfire rang in the ears of the owners and the few hearty reporters camped out off the property. Of course, due to the huge “bio threat” hazard (sarcasm) posed by the birds, government officials would not allow anyone on the property to view the massacres.
In the after photo above, the temporary hunting blinds where the wholesale executions were conducted can be seen. The whole debacle is sickening, creepy, and beyond heartless. These birds were not a threat to anyone or anything.
Government officials from the USA offered to take in the ostriches, but the offer was refused by the Canadian government. Dr. Oz even offered his ranch in Florida to house the birds – again, the kind offer was refused.
Note that the birds’ bodies are left out in the open. In an actual biothreat scenario, the carcasses would have been disposed of immediately and not just covered with loose tarps that look like they were purchased from Home Depot. The bodies of these huge birds were then left to rot in the morning sun the next day. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that this is not how an infectious disease threat is handled, but we all know there is no infectious disease threat there. This is pure security theater.
X journalists have now posted photos and careful eyes viewing these photos note that there are vultures sitting on the carcasses.
