It was 2004, less than a year after BSE hit the Canadian cattle industry, when Canada’s first outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) devastated poultry production in B.C. Without any playbook on how to manage the virus, a decision was made to cull all the birds on commercial farms in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. While 53 sites tested positive, a total of 16.2 million birds were ordered destroyed, and the economic cost was estimated north of $393 million. Fast forward to this past winter, 103 premises in BC have been infected in the 2022-23 outbreak, and B.C. is not alone this time around, but there’s been no mass cull as the playbook for managing the virus has evolved. This episode…