Inside Canada's chaotic response to avian flu

A CFIA official is calling it the 'largest animal health emergency that this country has ever had to face.' A joint IJF/CTV News investigation looks into Canada's response to the bird flu pandemic, and how it's ravaged the country's farms.

Editor's note: This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CTV National News.

Cora Scheele knew something was wrong with the chickens.

On a normal day, the barns on the Scheeles’ farm in central Alberta pulse with life. But on a morning in April 2022, something was different. “The birds were kind of lame and had no energy,” Scheele said.

And then they started to die.

Within two days, every single bird in one of her five barns was dead, victims of a wave of avian influenza that has ravaged Canada’s poultry farms and wild birds alike.

The Scheeles called in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) which quarantined their farm and euthanized the birds in the remaining four barns to stop the spread of the virus. Altogether, roughly 37,000 birds were killed.

“You take them out of their misery, and that’s the only thing you can do,” said Arjan Scheele, Cora’s husband. “You cannot stop it.”