The applicants do not dispute that the minister is authorized to take the measures, but they see no reason to implement them anymore, because six days have already passed without it having been shown that the poultry on the applicants’ farms is infected with bird flu. The animals show no signs of disease on visual inspection and the samples taken at one of the companies test negative for bird flu.
The preliminary relief judge stated that imposing a measure to preventively kill poultry is a drastic and far-reaching measure. Such a measure may be necessary to prevent further spread of animal diseases within the poultry sector. It is then logical that the measure is implemented as soon as possible, as delaying implementation longer makes the measure less effective and more difficult for the poultry farmers involved to digest.
At the hearing, two veterinarians explained that a visual inspection is not sufficient to conclude that bird flu is absent and that bird flu within a flock has an incubation period of approximately nine days. This means that there is currently still a risk that the Applicants’ poultry is infected with bird flu due to the contamination from the nearby farm. The preliminary relief judge assumes an incubation period of nine days, where an incubation period of 14 days is even taken into account internationally and the Dutch reference laboratory has calculated a period of nine days on the basis of data collected in the Netherlands for bird flu outbreaks. The parties agree that after the incubation period a fundamentally different situation arises from an epidemiological perspective.
Defendant has further argued that, barring calamities that require clearance capacity, clearance will take place within two days and thus within the incubation period. In view of this and the great importance involved in preventing the further spread of bird flu, the preliminary relief judge sees no reason to suspend the contested decision earlier than October 29 at 10 p.m. This means that the minister can continue the culling until that time.