Twenty big cats die of bird flu at sanctuary in Washington state
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Bengal tiger, cougars, a lynx and bobcats dead as disease spreads rapidly among US poultry flocks and dairy herds. Twenty big cats, including a Bengal tiger, four cougars, a lynx and four bobcats, have died after contracting bird flu at an animal sanctuary in Shelton, Washington.
The big cat deaths come as bird flu, a highly pathogenic avian influenza, has spread rapidly through poultry flocks and dairy herds in the US, infected and killed domestic cats, and caused a severe illness in a person in Louisiana. The big cats died between late November and mid-December at the Wild Felid Advocacy Center, according to the center’s director, Mark Mathews.
“We’ve never had anything like it; they usually die basically of old age,” Mathews told the New York Times. “Not something like this, it’s a pretty wicked virus.”. Three other cats recovered from the virus, and one remained in critical condition on Tuesday. Last week, the center announced on Facebook that bird flu had affected more than half of its wild cats.
That came less than three weeks after the center said it was temporarily closed to the public, stating that some of the animals were experiencing an unknown illness. “We, along with our veterinary team, are working tirelessly to determine the cause and come up with a solution,” the shelter wrote on Facebook.
