The United States government has placed an interim ban on poultry imports from British Columbia.

The move comes in response to a single case of avian flu found in a duck on a Fraser Valley farm.

U.S. officials sent a letter Monday to Canada's chief veterinary officer Dr. Brian Evans to inform him of the ban.

"We were able to ensure that the restriction was placed on B.C. mainland and not on (Vancouver) Island or other poultry sources," Evans told CTV Newsnet.

The U.S. will no longer import poultry products from the B.C. mainland until they get a full assessment of the situation in the five-kilometre radius around the affected farm.

When contacted by CTV News, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture would only say, "USDA is imposing restrictions consistent with international guidelines."

The U.S. provides a market for about seven per cent of B.C. poultry production.

Japan and Taiwan say they are likely to take similar action against poultry products from B.C.

In cases like this, Evans said countries could ban poultry products from an entire country, a distinct region like a province, or the affected area.

Such interim bans normally last 21 days.

Evans says he believes the United States might be willing to restrict the ban if a probe shows that the five-kilometre zone around the farm is free of the virus.

"The activities that we've been undertaking since Friday night's announcement hopefully will allow us to complete the compilation and reporting of that information, get it to the U.S., hopefully as early mid-week," he said.

"Overall, I would have to say we're encouraged that the overall international response has been quite measured, quite respectful of the measures we've put in place and ... respectful of our ability to manage the situation," Evans said.

Poultry meat in Canada remains safe for human consumption, he said.

Industry reaction

However, Mike Dungate of the Chicken Farmers of Canada said his group had hoped the U.S. had issued a less sweeping ban at the outset.

"They saw that we worked well to contain a small area and we would have hoped that they would have not put it as such a large area as the whole mainland of B.C.," he said.

B.C. officials said on Friday that they found the case of H5 avian flu at a commercial duck farm.

Crews finished culling the flock by Monday night. They began euthanizing almost 70,000 birds with carbon dioxide gas on Sunday night.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency veterinarian Cornelius Kiley says the cull took place under a "tremendous amount of biosecurity."

Kiley says the plan is to move nothing away from the farm. The duck and geese carcasses will be composted at the site.

The farm will be under a 21-day quarantine, at which point it will be tested again.

Four other farms connected to the affected farm are also under quarantine, and officials are preparing for culls there depending on the results of tests.

Farmer Brian Ens is one of those whose farm is locked down. He expressed some frustration with the process and thought an even quicker response had been warranted.

He wanted measures like closing all the area roads.

"They haven't figured out how it was tracked last time, so why not be over- cautious this time, close it down, seal it off, deal with it and then continue from there," he said.

An outbreak of H7N3 avian flu in the spring of 2004 led to the slaughter of 17 million birds in the Fraser Valley.

With a report from CTV's Todd Battis