Twenty massive cats – together with a Bengal tiger and 4 cougars – have died of the chicken flu over the previous a number of weeks at an animal sanctuary within the state of Washington.
“This tragedy has deeply affected our crew, and we’re all grieving the lack of these unimaginable animals,” the Wild Felid Advocacy Heart of Washington wrote in a submit on Fb.
The devastating viral an infection, carried by wild birds, spreads primarily via respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact and can be contracted by mammals that ingest birds or different merchandise.
The sanctuary is beneath quarantine and is closed to the general public to forestall the unfold of the virus, the assertion mentioned.
The animals died between late November and mid-December, the sanctuary’s director, Mark Mathews, informed the New York Instances.
“We have by no means had something prefer it; they often die mainly of previous age,” he mentioned. “Not one thing like this, it is a fairly depraved virus.”
The information comes as chicken flu continues to unfold amongst cattle and poultry within the US, whereas additionally severely infecting a minimum of one human.
The sanctuary mentioned it had misplaced 5 African serval cats, 4 bobcats, two Canada lynx and a Bengal tiger, amongst others. Solely 17 cats now stay on the Heart.
“Cats are significantly susceptible to this virus, which might trigger delicate preliminary signs however progress quickly, typically leading to loss of life inside 24 hours resulting from pneumonia-like situations,” the sanctuary mentioned in its Fb assertion on Friday.
Chook flu has lengthy contaminated poultry flocks within the US. However the virus started to contaminate cattle within the US for the primary time in March.
And since April 2024, there have been a complete of 61 human circumstances of chicken flu reported within the US, in accordance with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
The CDC says that the chance to most people stays low, and there was no sustained human-to-human transmission.
Most have reported delicate signs, although one individual was taken to the hospital with a extreme case of chicken flu in Louisiana this month.
Final week, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared an emergency over the outbreak among the many state’s dairy cows to assist the federal government have the “assets and suppleness they should reply shortly to this outbreak”.