British Columbia

Abbotsford bird flu quarantine expands as farmers calculate losses

The number of farms under quarantine in the Fraser Valley is growing because of concerns over avian flu, as farmers raise their own concerns that compensation for destroyed birds will fall far short of their losses.

The number of farms under quarantine in the Fraser Valley is growing because of concerns over avian flu, as farmers raise their own concerns that compensation for destroyed birds will fall far short of their losses.

Two more farms outside of the three-kilometre quarantine zone around E & H Farms in Abbotsford, B.C., have been cordoned off, raising the total number of affected farms to 26.

Sandra Stephens, a disease control specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said the two new farms have been quarantined as a precaution after someone there had contact with the E & H farm.

"We are trying to uncover all possible stones that might reveal where potentially this virus came from and where potentially it could be taken to," said Stephens.

Quarantine could expand further

So far, tests on the other farms are negative, but that could change.

"People should not be too surprised in the coming days — we may have others," said Stephans.

CFIA officials still believe the virus found on the E & H farm was low pathogenic, that is, less likely to cause illness, but tests are continuing to determine its full subtype and pathogenicity. Results should be known within days, they said.

There are multiple subtypes of the H5 virus that causes avian flu and the agency has cautioned that the presence of H5 does not mean there is an outbreak of specifically the H5N1 virus that has killed nearly 250 people in Asia, Africa and Europe after surfacing in Asia in late 2003.

In 2004, millions of birds died or were destroyed in the Fraser Valley from an outbreak caused by a "high pathogenic" H7N3 virus. The Fraser Valley experienced an H5N2 outbreak in November 2005.

Cull devastating for farm

Meanwhile, the two brothers who operate separate businesses on the E & H Farms property say the financial fallout of having 60,000 of their turkeys destroyed after the outbreak was detected on their property is devastating.

Shawn Heppel said he and his brother, Mike, will be without cash flow until late August due to the cull.

"It's three months minimum before we can start up again and four months after that until birds can be sold," Heppel said as CFIA personnel completed the destruction of the turkeys at the farm on Tuesday.

"So, we're looking at seven months without cash flow."

Workers with the agency began destroying the birds Monday by sealing the two barns on property near Abbotsford and flooding them with carbon dioxide.

The turkeys were ordered destroyed following the discovery last week of an H5 virus. The virus was detected only in Mike Heppell's barn, but all the birds in both barns still had to be destroyed.

The brothers would have received about $1.1 million had they been able to sell the fully grown birds at market, Shawn Heppel said.

Compensation is available under provisions of the federal Health of Animals Act, but the CFIA has already told him their compensation will be nowhere near that, he said.

Compensation disagreements

A spokesman for the B.C. Poultry Association said earlier that there are disagreements between the industry and the government about how compensation is calculated.

There are compensation programs through the provincial Agriculture Ministry, "but those usually pay out a year later, and they're usually a nickel on the dollar kind of program," Shawn Heppel said.

He said the outbreak has caused a lot of grief but likely won't mean the end of their farms.

 "We've been in business a long time, and this probably isn't going to put us out of business, but it's a big kick in the pants."

With files from the Canadian Press