(Stephen Ausmus photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Last of Ontario’s avian flu quarantines ends

Reading Time: 2 minutes Movement of birds and bird products in, through and out of southwestern Ontario’s Oxford and Waterloo counties is no longer subject to federal quarantine. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced Wednesday it has removed its second and final avian influenza control zone, which has been in place since April 21 and covered portions of both […] Read more

(File photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

BSE case’s traceout continues

Reading Time: 2 minutes Federal officials tracing out the herdmates of Canada’s 19th domestic case of BSE expect to have their final report on the case ready in late fall. Confirmed Feb. 11 as Canada’s first domestic case of the brain-wasting bovine disease since 2011, Case 19 was born in 2009 on the same northern Alberta farm as Case […] Read more


(Stephen Ausmus photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

SW Ontario pullet flock’s ILT contained

Reading Time: 2 minutes A warning to southwestern Ontario’s poultry producers in May to step up biosecurity over a non-avian-flu-related disease outbreak has been lifted. The Feather Board Command Centre, the emergency response office for Ontario’s poultry and egg sector boards, last week issued a “stand down” for heightened biosecurity, following an outbreak of avian infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) in […] Read more



These golden nematode cysts, shown here on potato roots, are about a third to half a millimetre in diameter. (Xiaohong Wang photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Potato ‘fields’ clarified for cross-border trade

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian and U.S. food inspectors have agreed on what they mean by a “field” in any restrictions they place on potato trade on account of potato cyst nematodes. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Tuesday announced new revisions to their Guidelines on Surveillance and Phytosanitary […] Read more



American wigeons at Quebec’s Iles-de-Contrecoeur National Wildlife Area. (Environment Canada photo by Benoit Audet)

H5N8-positive wild duck found in B.C.

Reading Time: < 1 minute Ongoing surveillance of Canada’s wild birds has turned up the country’s first-ever case of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian flu, in a duck carcass at a British Columbia bird sanctuary. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Friday reported the case to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), noting such a detection in wild birds “should […] Read more

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Canadian beef again moving to China

Reading Time: < 1 minute Federal inspectors are again issuing certificates for exports of Canadian beef to China, as Beijing’s temporary ban on the Canadian product comes to an end. The Chinese government in late February announced a temporary ban on imports of Canadian beef, shortly after Canada confirmed its first case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in a domestic […] Read more


(Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Third Ont. farm with avian flu cleared of birds

Reading Time: 2 minutes Updated, April 29, 2015 — Ontario is urging poultry farmers to look into the AgriStability income stabilization plan, after the province’s third poultry farm to catch H5N2 avian flu this month has put down all its turkeys. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed Monday that “humane depopulation” has already been completed at the Bright, Ont. […] Read more

(Dave Bedard file photo)

Second avian flu control zone set up in SW Ontario

Reading Time: 3 minutes A federal control zone has been officially set up for a 10-kilometre radius around the Oxford County chicken farm that’s home to Ontario’s second outbreak of H5N2 avian flu. This control zone, which covers ground in both Oxford County and Waterloo County, is an “internationally accepted practice,” meant to allow export business to continue from non-infected […] Read more