Bird flu kills 20 big cats at Washington animal sanctuary

Twenty big cats — including a Bengal tiger and four cougars — have died of bird flu in the past few weeks at an animal sanctuary in Washington state.

“This tragedy has deeply affected our team and we are all grieving the loss of these incredible animals,” the Washington Center for Feral Felines wrote in a Facebook post.

The devastating viral infection carried by wild birds is spread mainly through respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact, and can also be contracted from mammals that ingest birds or other food.

The reserve is under quarantine and closed to the public to prevent the spread of the virus, the statement said.

The animals died between the end of November and the middle of December, said the director of the reserve, Mark Matthews. New York Times.

“We’ve never had anything like this, they usually die mostly of old age,” he said. “Not something like that, it’s a pretty bad virus.”

The news comes as bird flu continues to spread among cattle and poultry in the U.S., while severely infecting at least one person.

The reserve said it lost five African serval cats, four lynxes, two Canadian lynxes and a Bengal tiger, among others. Now there are only 17 cats left in the Center.

“Cats are particularly vulnerable to this virus, which can cause mild initial symptoms but progress rapidly, often leading to death within 24 hours from pneumonia-like illness,” the sanctuary said. Facebook statement on Friday.

Bird flu has long infected poultry flocks in the United States. But the virus first began infecting cattle in the US in March.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since April 2024, there have been 61 human cases of bird flu in the United States.

The CDC says the risk to the general public remains low and there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission.

Most reported mild symptoms, although one person was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu in Louisiana this month.

Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the outbreak among the state’s dairy cows to help the government have “the resources and flexibility needed to quickly respond to this outbreak.”