That's an excellent question. Thank you very much for that question.
We work really closely with all the provinces and the territories, and our role is a support role. Ultimately, we all know there's a constitutional mandate for provinces, the federal government and indigenous nations for wildlife and wildlife health. The support we provide is really tailored to what's needed.
For example, in British Columbia, they have a very active program. We're involved to a lesser degree in British Columbia because of the way it's put together, but across the country our work allows essentially.... I don't want to say “real-time early warning”, but it allows early warning, because we are going to see high path avian influenza in wild birds before it shows up in farms. We'll see birds dying out on the landscape. By identifying them on the landscape, we can alert the authorities and alert farms in a particular area and say, “Hey, avian influenza is in this area.”
You should always make the assumption that it's there, but actually knowing that it's in the region is I think helpful, because it's really hard to maintain that super high-level biosecurity all the time. I'm not a farmer, but I understand. It's very difficult and it's expensive. Maintaining that biosecurity at such a high level all the time is very difficult, but if you know the virus is in the region, then you can adjust as necessary. I think even that simple fact of knowing where the virus is helps.