Pet brand recalls food after cat dies from bird flu contamination
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‘We are confident that this cat contracted H5N1 by eating the Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food,’ veterinarian says. Portland-based pet food company Northwest Naturals issued a North American recall after a cat died from consuming a batch of their cat food, which was contaminated with the bird flu virus.
Northwest Natural urged customers to immediately discard any recalled cat food with “best by” dates between May 21, 2026, and June 23, 2026, and to contact your point of purchase for a full refund. The potentially contaminated cat food was distributed across the US — specifically in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington — as well as in British Columbia, Canada.
Northwest Naturals stated that the recall is being conducted in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) in Salem, Oregon, which also released a statement. According to the ODA’s press release, laboratory testing conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University confirmed that the cat contracted H5N1 and died after consuming the raw frozen pet food. These tests also confirmed a genetic match between the virus found in the pet food and the virus that infected the cat.
He continued, “This cat was strictly an indoor cat. It was not exposed to the virus in its environment, and results from the genome sequencing confirmed that the virus recovered from the raw pet food and infected cat were exact matches to each other.”.
