Ostrich pen at B.C. farm looks still, empty of live birds, day after cull shooting

EDGEWOOD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — A holding pen at a B.C. ostrich farm that was filled with the birds on Thursday now appears still and empty of live birds, the morning after Canadian Food Inspection Agency workers started their cull of the flock.

Instead, the pen is filled with long blue tarpaulins covering objects on the ground that are also shrouded with black sheeting.

The scene comes after numerous gunshots were heard overnight from inside the pen made of a high wall of hay bales, where staff with the agency had herded scores of the ostriches a day earlier.

Bright floodlights and the bales obscured what was happening inside the enclosure after dark had fallen.

But the CFIA says it is moving forward to “complete depopulation and disposal” of the flock, fulfilling an order it iss