Twenty massive cats – together with a Bengal tiger and 4 cougars – have died of hen flu over the previous a number of weeks at an animal sanctuary within the state of Washington.
“This tragedy has deeply affected our staff, and we’re all grieving the lack of these unimaginable animals,” the Wild Felid Advocacy Center of Washington wrote in a submit on Facebook.
The devastating viral an infection, carried by wild birds, spreads primarily by means of respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact and will also be contracted by mammals that ingest birds or different merchandise.
The sanctuary is below 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, instructed the New York Times.
“We’ve by no means had something prefer it; they often die principally of previous age,” he mentioned. “Not one thing like this, it is a fairly depraved virus.”
The information comes as hen 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. Only 17 cats now stay on the Center.
“Cats are notably weak to this virus, which may trigger refined preliminary signs however progress quickly, usually leading to demise inside 24 hours as a result of pneumonia-like situations,” the sanctuary mentioned in its Facebook statement on Friday.
Bird flu has lengthy contaminated poultry flocks within the US. But 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 instances of hen flu reported within the US, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC says that the chance to most of the people stays low, and there was no sustained human-to-human transmission.
Most have reported delicate signs, although one particular person was taken to the hospital with a extreme case of hen flu in Louisiana this month.
Last 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 adaptability they should reply rapidly to this outbreak”.
