As experts continue to monitor and investigate the H5N1 avian influenza environment and the nation’s food supply, the rapid increase in cat carcasses has many concerned.
Dozens of felines, ranging from domestic cats in Los Angeles County and Oregon to captive wild cats in Washington and Colorado, have died as a result of ingesting raw pet food or milk infected with H5N1. There is.
Products carrying the virus were primarily sold for animal use, with the exception of raw milk, but experts say the presence of the virus in commercially available meat and dairy products indicates the vulnerability of the U.S. food chain to this virus. He says that it highlights his sexuality.
“With multiple H5N1 fatalities diagnosed, could we in good conscience provide a broader public warning that raw meat has been linked to multiple big cat deaths?” said physician epidemiologist John Courseland. Email.
In response to the deaths, policy changes announced Friday by the USDA and Food and Drug Administration include pre-slaughter regulations for some poultry farms in Minnesota and South Dakota and food safety risks for raw pet food producers. The focus is on changing evaluations.
And they highlight the opaque and largely unregulated industry of raw pet food production.
Although the FDA provides raw pet food producers with guidance on best practices, there are few, if any, regulations regarding how to source raw meat for pet food. Industrious entrepreneurs believe that wild game, backyard herds, and other meats that are not inspected by the USDA are safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, and free of adulterants. Meat and protein can be sourced from farms, and even meat that is not deemed suitable or appetizing for human consumption. According to the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the law that governs pet food, it must be free of harmful substances and truthfully labeled.
The agency also plans to investigate companies if animals become ill after eating pet food. Additionally, birds infected with the virus are not allowed into the food supply due to USDA regulations.
“It is clear that the large quantities of protein produced outside of (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service testing facilities are never intended for human consumption,” said USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs Officer. Deputy Secretary of State Eric Deeble said in a speech. Thursday’s press conference. However, H5N1-infected birds “are not allowed to be used in any food at all, and are most often composted on-site as part of efforts to reduce the spread of the virus.” ”
In Los Angeles County alone, nine cats have become ill or died after eating raw milk, raw pet food, or both containing H5N1 avian influenza. On Monday, county public health officials announced that five indoor cats in a household became ill after eating Monarch Raw Pet Food, based in San Jacinto, California. Two people died.
In December, 20 captive wild cats, including four cougars and a half-Bengal-Siberian tiger, died after eating raw pet food contaminated with H5N1 at an animal sanctuary in Shelton, Washington. did. Two tigers, a lion, a mountain lion, and a fox in Colorado also died after eating the bait. So were her two cats, one in Oregon and one in Colorado.
Data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Plant Health Inspection show that the genetic sequence of the H5N1 virus in all but nine of Washington’s cats was determined by Oregon-based Northwest Naturals Pet Food Co. in May. It matched a sample taken from a packaged frozen turkey in June. The services include GISAID (a public genetic database focused on influenza viruses), the National Institutes of Health’s GenBank, and the World Organization for Animal Health, an international organization dedicated to research and surveillance of animal diseases. Masu. Frozen meat remained raw.
In both cases, both the food samples and the animal carcasses had characteristic mutations in some segments of the virus (switch at position 52 of the NP protein), according to evolutionary molecular biologist Henry Niemann. There is an unmistakable relationship between them.
Only Oregon’s domestic cats are actively associated with the Northwest Naturals brand name by state and federal agencies. Other cats were killed by a virus that is genetically identical to the virus found in Oregon cats and Northwest Naturals food samples, but these cats were not given the same meat or food made from the outbreak source in different ways. It may have been given by brand name.
Questions sent to Northwest Naturals went unanswered.
Northwest Naturals has voluntarily recalled 2-pound plastic bags from the suspect batches with “best before” dates of May 21, 2026, B10 and June 23, 2026, B1. And the company suggests on its website that the samples were contaminated after packaging and manufacturing.
“Testing of open bags of pet food leaves open the possibility that the virus may have entered the bag after opening,” the company wrote on its FAQ page about the recall.
Nieman said the changes observed in the gene sequence are “very rare.” And besides the Northwest Naturals sample and the animals that ate it, three other animals that showed changes in this latest H5N1 outbreak were killed in June as a result of the infection. Only three Minnesota commercial turkeys were culled. Processed and packaged pet food.
Niman said there is no way from genomic sequencing to show that it was the turkeys from the Minnesota farm that got into the pet food, but the virus was likely traveling in the area at the time. And somehow the infected birds must have gotten into the slaughterhouse without anyone noticing, he said. Most researchers argue that this should be extremely rare. Commercial poultry usually shows symptoms within hours of H5N1 infection and dies almost immediately.
Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor of poultry health and food safety epidemiology at the University of California, Davis, agreed. “I’m not sure, but I suspect the birds may have become infected just before slaughter,” he said in an email. “I was not aware of any companies selling raw poultry for consumption by pets. ” he added.
But if infected turkeys were slaughtered without being identified, that suggests there could be more infected meat, said Mr. Courseland, a former veterinary epidemiologist at the USDA. .
And that’s what USDA and FDA researchers and health officials are concerned about.
On Friday, the USDA announced a new policy for turkey operations in Minnesota and South Dakota with more than 500 birds that would require pre-slaughter testing and quarantine of the birds 72 hours before slaughter. Announced. The agency cited a link between infected turkeys and domestic cats in Oregon as the reason for the new program.
Meanwhile, the FDA is asking raw pet food processors to reanalyze their food safety systems, citing “California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington domestic cats associated with ingestion of contaminated food.” and cases of H5N1 infection in wild cats.” Incorporate H5N1 into your analysis.
“FDA recommends that cat and dog food manufacturers who use uncooked or unpasteurized ingredients derived from poultry or cows in cat or dog food should reanalyze their food safety plans to “We have determined that it is necessary to include this as a new known or reasonably foreseeable risk.”
It is likely that it will continue to befall cats to alert them to the presence of viruses in food or the environment.
Scientists say cats are highly susceptible to H5N1 infections. Since the outbreak was first reported in a Texas dairy herd last March, barn cat carcasses have served as sentinels, alerting veterinarians and investigators to the presence of the virus on farms.
In cats, this virus can affect the brain and nervous system. Many suffer from blindness, seizures, and abnormal behavior. Autopsy often reveals large amounts of virus in the brain.
And while the deaths of these cats are concerning from a conservation and protection standpoint for animals whose habitats are being destroyed and populations increasingly marginalized, public health officials should be concerned about captive cats. Scientists say this is the death of a dead cat. This is a sign that the virus is making its way into commercial meat and milk supplies, which is concerning but not surprising given its presence in dairy cows and commercial poultry farms. do not have.
Health officials say the best way to avoid infection is to thoroughly cook meat, consume only pasteurized dairy products, and avoid raw meat and dairy products, commercially available or not. The plan is to stop giving it to pets.
