Kelowna trivia night aims to debunk myths around ostrich cull controversy

Weeks have passed since the cull of an ostrich flock captivated people’s attention, but a group in Kelowna thinks it’s important to take a look at the arguments that opposed the cull. 

The Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists Association is organizing a trivia event this evening to talk about how to debunk flawed arguments using the Universal Ostrich Farm controversy as an example. 

“There’s a lot of logical fallacies that were used in trying to persuade people to follow (the save the ostrich campaign),” the association’s president Nina George told iNFOnews.ca. “We’re basically just analyzing some of the things they said, and fun trivia about ostriches.”

The trivia group is called the O.S.T.R.I.C.H.E.S or Okanagan Skeptics, Testers, Rationalists, Independents, Critical Thinkers, Humanists, Evidence-Seekers, and Science Lovers. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency killed 314 ostriches because of an outbreak of avian flu, which is the common practice when a flock is infected and improperly quarantined. 

Supporters of the Save Our Ostriches campaign said there was no reason to cull the flock and said it was government overreach.

George said the arguments made by people who wanted to save the ostriches were based on emotions and didn’t follow widely accepted, peer-reviewed science. 

“When you can learn about debunking an argument based on the fact that it’s illogical, it really helps people. It’s also just a fun thing to do,” she said. 

Even though the cull took place weeks ago there are still people who are outraged by the deaths of the ostriches. George said the ostrich campaign was fueled by the same distrust for science and the government that came to a head during the pandemic with anti-vaccine protests. 

“COVID created a social movement where people saw that there were other people who were anti-everything,” she said. “But they don’t actually have the tools to understand critical thinking and how to debunk stuff. They’re more emotional than anything else.”

She said the trivia night isn’t meant as a personal attack on the farm owners or supporters and is going to be focused on the arguments about government overreach and virus science used to try to save the ostriches. 

“They always consider anything the government does is overreach, but they’re stopping at stop signs. They follow the rules of the road, most likely. There’s a lot of rules we have in our society so we don’t kill each other,” she said. “They just didn’t understand the science.”

George said the association isn’t worried about ostrich supporters turning up to the event at Freddy’s Brew Pub at 6 p.m. today, Dec. 8.