million in exports as a result of an avian flu outbreak, which also cost the ostrich industry 26,000 birds and 400 employees. The business arm of the ostrich industry, the Klein Karoo Group, stated that the recent ban on exports resulted in an increase of about 500% in local sales. Most ostrich farms recovered from the outbreak and continued to operate. In April, 2011, a strain of bird flu, H5N2, broke out in Oudtshoorn. As a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health, South Africa was required under international law to slaughter infected birds that belonged to farms which had tested positive for bird flu; as a result 38,000 ostriches were culled. The European Union, which had been responsible for 90% of South Africa's ostrich meat exports, banned the import of South African ostrich meat. This resulted in financial difficulties for the region's ostrich farms. Farmers were offered financial compensation by the government in the form of R2,000 for each ostrich culled (about 80% of its worth) but this compensation was not enough; they were forced to fire employees, whose UIF (unemployment) benefits were depleted by December, 2011. The shortage of birds would also affect factories which depended on ostrich farming. Some ostrich farms managed to survive by selling ostrich feathers and leather, but the industry was losing R108 million monthly, and had lost R1,2 billion in total between April, 2011, and January, 2012. Tourism was also affected. Other farmers resorted to heat-treating the ostrich meat, which killed the virus but also reduced its price on the market. As of January 2012, Oudtshoorn's population of more than 200,000 ostriches was the world's largest, and accounted for 80% of the world's ostrich products. The ostrich industry in the Oudtshoorn region had directly employed 20,000 people, and generated R2,1 billion per year. 50% of ostrich farmers had left the industry by 2013. The first positive case of a bird flu in South Africa since 2011 was confirmed in April, 2013 on a farm near Oudtshoorn, as the H7N1 virus. Between the H5N2 virus outbreak of 2011 and the H7N1 virus outbreak of 2013, roughly 50,000 ostriches had been culled. The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, said in October, 2014 that the outbreaks "in the past few years" had cost the country R4 billion. Municipal crisis In the years leading up to the 2013 municipal by-elections, Oudtshoorn had been