Bird flu kills more than half the big cats at a Washington sanctuary

By Nic F. Anderson and Randi Kaye, CNN

(CNN) — Bird flu has been on the rise in Washington state and one sanctuary was hit hard: 20 big cats – more than half of the facility’s population – died over the course of weeks.

The Wild Felid Advocacy Center of Washington announced the deaths Friday on Facebook. The nonprofit sanctuary is in Shelton, about 22 miles northwest of Olympia.

“We thought we were doing everything we could to avoid anything like this from happening,” the center’s director and cofounder Mark Mathews told CNN. “The cats are pretty well split up into 30- by 40-foot habitats.”

Mathews said the cats’ enclosures are spread out across 5 acres.

It is currently unknown exactly how the big cats contracted bird flu, but Mathews said the first death occurred around Thanksgiving.

The 17-year-old cougar that got sick on November 22, named Hannah Wyoming, stopped eating and died the next day. A day later, an African caracal named Crackle also got sick and died, according to Mathews.

The 20 animals that died include: five African servals, four bobcats, four cougars, two Canada Lynxes, one Amur-Bengal tiger mix and other species of big cats.

“Tabbi the tiger was a fun-loving tiger. She had a super personality. Every time I’d come up, she’d be running to meet me,” Mathews said.

“People just loved her,” he added.

Only 17 of the 37 cats once housed at the sanctuary are left. Neiko, an African serval, is still in critical condition fighting to regain the use of his back legs, according to Mathews.

The sanctuary is under quarantine and closed to the public to prevent further spread of the bird flu, it said in a statement. The center said it is working with federal and state animal health officials, disinfecting each enclosure and working with veterinarians on “prevention strategies while they oversee treatment to protect animal welfare.”

The sanctuary is taking donations and hopes to reopen in March, Mathews said.

While it is unknown how the big cats contracted the bird flu, it “spreads primarily through respiratory secretions and bird-to-bird contact and can also be contracted by carnivorous mammals that ingest birds or other products,” the center said in its statement.

“Initially, we thought it was bird droppings from water foul,” Mathews said. “We are in a flight pattern for migratory birds; not sure if that’s part of the equation or not. We really don’t know if it is food-related or not.”

Cats are particularly vulnerable to bird flu, which can cause subtle initial symptoms that may “progress rapidly, often resulting in death within 24 hours due to pneumonia-like conditions,” the center said. Symptoms include low energy, swelling of body parts, lack of coordination and diarrhea in pet birds, while cats and dogs may experience a fever, lethargy and low appetite, among other symptoms, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“Usually, when a vet comes out and they do immobilization, they start to feel better, and with Harley (the cougar), it was different because he made it pretty obvious he wasn’t feeling better after his treatment,” sanctuary employee Jolie Connolly-Poe told CNN affiliate KOMO.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported earlier this month bird flu cases have been on the uptick across the state. It also confirmed two cougars contracted bird flu in another part of the state.

“(I’m) feeling devastated, kind of in shock. It just feels terrible that you take such good care of them, and then something unforeseen takes its toll real fast,” Connolly-Poe said. The center is “just taking good care of those recovering.”

In the 20 years since the sanctuary opened, Mathews told KOMO there hasn’t been an instance like this before. The center is taking additional precautions to avoid a further spread of bird flu as they prepare to disinfect everything.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s “rare for people to be infected with bird flu viruses through contact with infected wild, stray, feral, or domestic mammals” but it is possible if there is “prolonged and unprotected exposure” to the sick animal.

There have been 39 cases of human exposure from cows, 23 from poultry and one from other animal exposure this year.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story undercounted the number of cases of human exposure to bird flu from animals.

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