Forest Safety: Bird Flu Kills Cats

Forest Safety: Bird Flu Kills Cats
by Joan Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Is your cat catching bird flu?

Associated Press (March 1, 2006) reports:

German officials announce (Feb 28) bird-flu virus in a dead cat (discovered Feb 25 or 26).
First central-Europe finding of bird-flu virus in an animal other than a bird.
Over 100 H5N1-infected birds previously found on same Baltic Sea island of Ruegen.
The cat probably ate an infected bird, according to head of Friedrich Loeffler Institute.
Transfer to cats (tigers, snow leopard) seen in Thailand zoo (2003-2004) and to house cats (who infected each other) in Bangkok (2004).
Scientists are concerned:
1. H5N1 might mutate into a form easily transferred among humans, leading to a pandemic.
2. If bird flu infects pigs (which can be infected with human flu virus), then the two viruses could swap genetic material and create new human-transferable viruses.
January 2006: 21 people in Turkey tested positive for H5N1; 4 (all children) died.
February 27, 2006: WHO cites 173 human bird-flu cases known to it world-wide and 93 deaths.

Train your cat to be a happy indoor cat.

Protect your cat, protect yourself - and protect the songbirds from predation by cats.

See Cat Facts for details on cat killings that might give your cat bird flu:

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