Tragic news from Shelton*, Washington: in an animal sanctuary that specializes in big cats, the Wild Felid Advocacy Center, the tigers and caracals and lynxes have been dropping like flies.
“They’re drowning, basically, in their own lungs,” said Melinda Mathews.
Melinda Mathews lives here full-time with her husband, Mark, who founded the nonprofit in 2006.
“They were immensely suffering,” Melinda said, her face drawn in sadness. “It was the hardest thing, so hard.”
The first to get sick was a cougar, Hannah Wyoming, back in mid-November. The veterinarian thought she had cancer. And when Crackle, an African Caracal got sick, the vet thought the cause was cancer, too.
But the big cats died and others soon followed.
“Basically, we’ve lost a cat every day for about two and a half weeks,” Mark said.
It’s the bird flu, H5N1, that was spreading through all the animals. They think it was transmitted through the cat food, which often contained bird meat. Now there has also been a recall of Northwest Naturals Turkey Recipe cat food after tests showed that it was tainted with H5N1, and after one domestic pet died of bird flu.
This is how those sneaky viruses get you. H5N1 is spread widely in bird populations, but is unlikely to spread to humans, and does so only rarely. Now a variant has a toehold in a common, widespread mammal that thrives in our homes and farms and cities, numbering about 75 million animals. If a pandemic spreads through that population, which would be terrible news in itself, a variant that can thrive in people could arise, and then…lockdowns and mask mandates and a frantic search for a vaccine. Unfortunately, this could come at a time when a big chunk of the population likes to defy basic practices in hygiene and when an incoming administration has expressed a desire to gut the scientific enterprise in the USA, and we’re about to have a demented anti-vaxxer in charge of biomedical research.
I guess the evil cat is going to have to go. I’m not going to harbor a plague vector in my home.
Wait, what’s that? The cat has informed me that she’s an indoor cat and we never let her go outside anyway, despite all the tail-twitching staring she does at the window. Also, all of her cat food is fish-based, because she doesn’t like the taste of bird — she wants to murder them, not eat them.
Also, we haven’t trimmed her razor sharp claws in a while, and she knows where we sleep.
*I know where Shelton is! My grandson lives in Lacey, and I have other relatives in McCleary.
The Mathews need a new vet. Well, maybe not now.
Because of course they needed to profit from the infected flock of chickens and turkeys rather than having the diseased carcasses incinerated as they should have been. Not eating diseased animals is basic food safety.
Poor cats!
Don’t forget the conspiracy theories, the quack “cures,” the racial scapegoating, the armed kooks seizing state legislatures in the name of “freedom.”…
Cute.
what’s that Metallica song? Enter Sandman:
Say your prayers, little one, don’t forget, my son
To include everyone
I tuck you in, warm within, keep you free from sin
‘Til the Sandman, he comes
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight
WATCH OUT FOR THE CAT IN THE NIGHT!!!1!11!!!
Can you give them pure oxygen?
Put them in an oxygen tent, the functioning parts of the lungs will process the oxygen five times better than the 80% nitrogen/20% oxygen in ordinary air.
Plus for small organisms a substantial amount of oxygen will enter by diffusion through the skin.
.
I heard weeks ago that bird flu had mutated enough to target felids. So all this was predictable.
Giving a cat pure oxygen would require either sedating them so they don’t struggle against the mask or keeping them in some sort of sealed room, neither of which is precisely feasible long term.
@birgerjohansson #6:
IIRC, 50% oxygen for any length of time would kill them, so 100% is definitely out.
Vaccinate them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1_vaccine
Shelton, gateway to Bremerton or Potlatch depending on which exit one takes
This doesn’t bode well given that the Venn diagram of crazy cat ladies and RFKjr anti-vaxxers is almost a circle.
@ ^ dbinmn : it is?
Thinking here of now Vice -President (thanks Vicar, beholder, Purtity Disunity mob) JD Vance’s anti-cat ladies comments which among other things give me the impression most of them were much more leftwing and thus reasonable and relatively sane people..
Rich Woods @ 8
Goddamn it.
And since we do not have Star Trek medical tech…. do human vaccines even work on felids? Is there a cat specific vaccine?
This is why mine stay strictly indoors. Nature is fucking deadly.
I would recommend everybody buy a supply of highly rated N95 masks now before the rush. If you buy them now, the manufacturers will make more and maybe even stock pile them so that nurses don’t run out of them like they did last time.
Because if you wait until the rush to buy them, you may not find them and if you DO find them, you just might take some out of the hands of ICU nurses.
So buy them now before the rush. It will be a service to yourself and your family, and arguably a service to front line workers.
The mortality rate of H5N1 to humans is on par with the Black Death of the 14th century 30-60% in it’s current form. If it mutates in this form to pass easily between humans (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/single-mutation-h5n1-influenza-surface-protein-could-enable-easier-human-infection) it ain’t gonna be like Covid or the 1918 flu and masks ain’t gonna help. Sure, medicine has come a long way since the 14th century – but – well, say hello to Captain Trips. Would be the best to thing to happen to the rest of the planet – beating human numbers into submission – but i am a misanthropic nihilist and my opinion is probably not very popular. If it comes to that will take my dog, copies of Lord of the Rings, and Wuthering Heights and recordings by Ralph Vaughn Williams into the Welsh hills (yes, i will be a dweeb until the end) where i can still see the sea and quietly wait for my demise cosy in the indifference of the natural world. I am sure my carcass will do more good dead, or at least cause less harm than it ever did alive. Bring it on!
Or maybe i will just build myself a viking longship and sail off in to the horizon!
Kathi, why do you think masks will not help?
Masks will help, as well as the usual protocols but if this thing remains as deadly as it is if/when it becomes easily transmissible masks i fear will be like bandaids.
Kathi, appreciate your clarification.
(Nothing wrong with your attitude for mine, I appreciate your realism)
@11: Crazy cat lady here. Definitely not an RFK Jr fan. My kitties have had all their vaccinations and do not eat raw diets or go near any raw dairy. I’m not on the woo-woo train. I also get all my vaccinations as well.
Hoping we’ll be working on a bird flu vaccine.