H5N1: Big Cat Carnage- Housecat Raw Foods Threaten Meat's Flu-safe Reputation

Lots of lab work remains to narrow down the questions, but raw meat is in the cross hairs

One of my best sources for early notifications of developing events is FluTrackers News and Information. Friday night I caught wind of a large cat die-off at a wild felid cat sanctuary in the state of Washington on post #7 on this link: Washington: 2024 Avian flu in mammals - FluTrackers News and Information. Here is the direct Facebook link to the same story: Wild Felid Advocacy Center of Washington

Here is the geographical site: Wild Felid Advocacy Center Map

Urgent Announcement: HPAI Outbreak at Our Sanctuary. We are heartbroken to share that animal health officials have confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) among over half of our wild felids as of December 2024. This devastating viral infection, carried by wild birds, spreads primarily through respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact and can also be contracted by carnivorous mammals that ingest birds or other products. Cats are particularly vulnerable to this virus, which can cause subtle initial symptoms but progress rapidly, often resulting in death within 24 hours due to pneumonia-like conditions. To protect our remaining animals and prevent further spread, our sanctuary is under quarantine and will remain closed to the public until further notice. We are working closely with federal and state animal health authorities, as well as Mason County health officials, to ensure the safety of our staff, volunteers, and all animals in our care. In addition, we are working closely with our incredible, expert private veterinarians on prevention strategies while they oversee treatment to protect animal welfare. As an animal sanctuary, we are equipped to manage outbreaks through strict biosecurity measures, quarantining affected animals, and comprehensive disinfection protocols.

Despite these efforts, we have suffered significant losses among our beloved residents. It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of the following wild cats:

• 1 Amur/Bengal Tiger: Tabbi

• 4 Cougars: Hooligan, Holly, Harley, Hannah Wyoming

• 1 African Caracal: Crackle

• 2 Canada Lynx: Chuckie and P'uch'ub

• 1 Geoffroy Cat: Mouse

• 1 Bengal Cat: Pebbles

• 1 Eurasian Lynx: Thumper

• 4 Bobcats: Digger, Willie-Bob, Ruffian, Tank

• 5 African Servals: Nile, Percival, Nefertiti, Blondie, Shasta

This tragedy has deeply affected our team, and we are all grieving the loss of these incredible animals.

This sanctuary has lost at least 20 big cats to H5N1 influenza, most likely through ingestion of viral-laden raw meat! It’s important to withhold judgement until more facts are known regarding food sources for the sanctuary - poultry versus red meat and level of health inspection of the meat source are 2 initial questions I have. Hopefully some product may remain for testing and/or the meat sources may be available for further investigation.

Another significant point - I don’t know when the cats began to die or when animal health officials were notified, but the first word the public received regarding this significant newsworthy incident (death of 20 large cats from H5N1) comes from a Facebook post by the sanctuary owners! An official announcement with a timeline of events from state and federal animal health authorities is overdue and needed as soon as possible to clarify the situation.

Sequencing of the isolate(s) will further inform epidemiological investigations based on possible meat sources. Poultry meat or offal with D1.X genotype isolate would indicate a wild bird spillover infection into a local poultry flock harvested for wild cat consumption prior to a HPAI diagnosis and death in the flock. Red meat or offal with B3.13 genotype would indicate H5N1 viral residues in slaughtered cattle, not thought to be a significant issue to date. However, the recent announcement by FSIS of an H5N1-positive beef carcass found in California shows that such a source is at least a possibility.

In Friday’s post (A Brief Weekly Review, then on to What's Missing) I referenced the case of H5N1-infected house cats in LA County without access to raw milk or other known H5N1 risk factors, in which county officials mentioned access to raw meat as a possible source of infection for these cats. On Saturday morning my second reliable source, Michael Coston with Avian Flu Diary posted updated information from the LA County Health Department (animal health division) regarding their investigations of H5N1 cat infections in LA county:

Avian Flu Diary: Search results for LA Cats

From a separate household in LA County, Veterinary Public Health is investigating five indoor only domestic cats that became ill presumably after consuming two different brands of raw pet food diets composed of raw poultry and raw beef.

Approximately 2 weeks after consuming the raw diets, two cats presented with acute respiratory distress to veterinary clinics and were humanely euthanized. One of these cats had known pre-existing cardiac disease. Two other cats presented with symptoms including lethargy, reduced appetite, upper respiratory, neurologic, and ocular signs of disease. One cat was treated for corneal edema and uveitis in one eye. The other cat displayed ataxia, uveitis and bilateral retinal detachment in both eyes and was tested with a respiratory panel from a commercial veterinary diagnostic laboratory, which resulted as presumptive positive for Influenza A and Feline Calicivirus.

This sample was further detected as positive for H5 bird flu at the California Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) Laboratory and the sample will be sent to NVSL for confirmation, subtyping, and sequencing. The investigation is ongoing and includes testing of the raw pet food diets by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

On Friday I had minimized the odds that pet food was a likely source of infection for the housecats. At this point we lack confirmation, but FDA testing and viral genotyping will help determine if the cat infections are linked in any way to either of the raw pet foods fed to the cats.

I want to congratulate the animal health division of the LA Public Health Department for such complete real-time transparency. It’s refreshing to have public health information shared as it is confirmed, rather than in bits and pieces from 3rd party sources (like private Facebook pages…)

The big cat die-off in Washington and the housecat case in Los Angeles both reinforce practical risks with H5N1 and raw meat. We will learn much in the next few weeks regarding species and genotypes involved in both cases; excessive speculation for required mitigations are premature.

Regardless, we are reminded once again by these cases as well as the recent FSIS positive H5N1 PCR finding that we lack knowledge regarding systemic virus presence in dairy cattle, potentially non-dairy cattle, and for other meat animal species (pigs, sheep and goats, etc.).

The existing research and postmortem evidence we already possess has shown viral presence in multiple tissues in addition to the udder. Cows consistently show respiratory signs with bloody nasal discharge and fluid imbalances prior to clinical mastitis; in fact, bulk tanks go positive up to 15 days pre-clinical outbreak, indicating that virus is systemically passing from the blood stream into milk very early. Baby calves have been shown by ARS researchers to become infected by ingestion of H5N1 positive milk, not yet published but disclosed at the Leman Swine Conference 2024.

Despite all this evidence, the dairy and regulatory establishment has clung to the theme of exclusive udder-based infections spread through fomite transmissions and spread through biosecurity breaches. I can only conclude that discarding this favored “lactating cow only” mechanism leads to the inescapable conclusion that ALL cattle classes of all ages may be susceptible to infection, requiring a much broader surveillance and response effort than either the dairy and beef cattle industry or regulatory medicine has been willing to muster to date.

It’s time for the entire U.S. red meat and milk industries to unite with their poultry partners to develop an ongoing strategy for addressing this serious virus H5 influenza virus complex. H5 assessments will need to expand beyond B3.13 to include newer strains as they arise, such as the current D1.X strains affecting poultry flocks.

We can start with 2 basic questions, researched free of political agendas:

1. What species and commodity and age subgroups show evidence of H5N1 infection, by geographical area? The bulk tank surveillance effort is a start, but should be expanded to other species and age groups

2. How does the virus spread? Where are the receptors? What is the interspecies risk?

There are a whole series of questions flowing from these 2 basic questions, but let’s start with its incidence and how it spreads. Those are basic questions we are long overdue in researching! It will be incredibly expensive to answer them and may require some mandatory testing and modified geolocation information sharing as the effort progresses. The U.S. has abundant testing and sequencing capacity that could be coordinated for a much wider and timely multispecies information collection system than is utilized currently flowing through the NVSL confirmatory keyhole.

Vaccines may arise that greatly aid in this process. Conversely, we could face a related zoonotic outbreak that could threaten the viability of one or more of our commodity groups. Regardless, do we dare continue on our current course of limited information and research avoidance, assuming that consumer trust and good will continue as raw meat products threaten beloved animal consumers?

More to come as more reports become available.

John