Cases of bird flu have been rising in the state of Washington, in the United States, and an animal sanctuary was hit hard by the disease: 20 big cats – more than half of the animals there – died over the course of several weeks.
The Wild Felid Advocacy Center in Washington announced the deaths in a Facebook statement. The nonprofit sanctuary is located in Shelton.
“It’s been a big nightmare. I never thought something like this could happen to us,” center director and co-founder Mark Mathews told KOMO, an affiliate of CNN.
“Maybe only one facility had cats in close proximity to each other, and ours are spread out over five acres,” he highlighted.
It’s not known exactly how the big cats contracted bird flu, but Mathews reported that the first death occurred around Thanksgiving.
Among the 20 animals that died were: five African servals, four lynxes, four cougars, two Canadian lynxes, a mix of Amur and Bengal tigers and other species of big cats.
“Tabbi was my favorite tigress. Before Thanksgiving, we had 37 felines. Today, we have 17, (including) four who are recovering,” Mathews highlighted to KOMO.
The sanctuary is quarantined and closed to the public to prevent further spread of bird flu, a statement said.
The center noted that it is working with federal and state animal health authorities, disinfecting each enclosure and working with veterinarians on “prevention strategies while overseeing treatment to protect the animals’ well-being.”
The sanctuary hopes to reopen in the new year, according to the official website.
Sanctuary investigates spread of bird flu
While it is not known how the big cats contracted bird flu, the sanctuary said the disease “spreads primarily through respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact, and can also be contracted by carnivorous mammals that eat poultry or other products.”
Felines are especially vulnerable to bird flu, which can cause subtle initial symptoms that can “progress rapidly, often causing death within 24 hours due to pneumonia-like symptoms,” the center notes.
Symptoms include low energy, swelling of body parts, lack of coordination and diarrhea in pet birds, while dogs and cats may experience fever, lethargy and lack of appetite, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“Normally, when a vet comes in and does a restraint on them, they start to feel better, and with Harley [a puma] It was different because it made it pretty obvious that she wasn’t feeling better after the treatment,” sanctuary employee Jolie Connolly-Poe told KOMO.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported earlier this month that bird flu cases have increased across the state. He also confirmed that two mountain lions contracted the disease in another region.
“I feel devastated, in shock. “It’s terrible to look after them so well and have something unexpected affect them so quickly,” Connolly-Poe commented.
In the 20 years since the sanctuary opened, there has never been a case like this, Mathews told KOMO. The center is taking extra precautions to prevent the spread of bird flu as it prepares to disinfect everything.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that “it is rare for people to become infected with the avian influenza virus through contact with wild, stray, wild or infected mammals,” but it is possible if there is “ prolonged and unprotected exposure” to the sick animal.
According to the CDC, there have been two cases of bird flu transmitted to humans by mammals: one in 2016, in a feline, and another in 2024, in a cow.
This content was originally published in Bird flu kills more than half of big cats in sanctuary in the USA on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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