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Bird flu kills more than half the big cats at a Washington sanctuary
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIt’s really sad. Some of the remaining cats are still recovering. And they’ve had to throw out all their feed as a precaution (very expensive). They’re looking for donations to survive. What’s scary though is how it spread. They had less than 40 animals spread out over 5 acres. It’s odd that it affected most of their cats.
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoMy understanding is when birds get sick, they tend to hide somewhere on the ground, in a bush or the like and are easy prey for felines. I would guess a flock of birds were infected and they just were all over the area.
- oasisbob 2y agoLast I heard, food disposal was more than a precaution; food from raw poultry products were viewed as the most likely route of infection.
- exabrial 2y agoHow are you gonna create a panic with these sort of facts, sir
- qazxcvbnmlp 2y ago5 acres is pretty confined for cats like that. In the wild they would have 100s-1000s of acres per animal.
- chrisweekly 2y ago40 cats in 5 acres is 0.125 acres per cat - this "sanctuary" is sized like a zoo.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoIt is certainly smaller than their wild range. Mountain lions have wild ranges in the 10,000-100,000 acres.
- ComputerGuru 2y ago5 acres is literally an oversized backyard.
- gopher_space 2y agoTell people how long it would take you to walk five acres.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago5 acres is one or two city blocks. So maybe 7-10 minutes to walk the perimeter depending on your pace?
- ternnoburn 2y agoA few minutes of I was moving briskly? 5 acres is tiny.
- madaxe_again 2y agoAn acre is a unit of area, not distance - this is like asking how long it would take you to drink six degrees Fahrenheit.
- gopher_space 2y agoNone of these answers are honest.
- HelloMcFly 2y agoIf we're not accounting for terrain difficulties, then walking the perimeter of a 5 acre rectangular plot of land would take more than 5 minutes but less than 10 minutes.
- s1artibartfast 2y agorather shocking. 1 square mile is 640 acres. 5 acres is 460 feet per side. 5 acres is about the indoor size of a typical Walmart or Costco.
- 2y ago
- slavik81 2y ago5 acres is 140 meters by 140 meters. That's roughly one city block.
- cthalupa 2y agoI think we'd be pretty concerned if humans were infecting each others outdoors from a city block away. But it doesn't sound like it was spread cat to cat if they think it was the food - seems like it wouldn't have mattered how much space they had if they were all fed contaminated feed.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoRecently posted related news: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/bird-flu-spread-cattle-poultry-pandemic-cdc/ https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/bird-flu-spread-cattl... (America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic) HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42496619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42496619 (no discussion though)
- gnabgib 2y agoThere was on the Scientific America copy (10 points, 3 days ago, 6 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42490096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42490096
- discardedrefuse 2y agoThis was a well researched piece of journalism. Thanks for re-posting it here!
- alhadrad 2y agoIf you prefer: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/25/twenty-big-cats-die-bird-flu https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/25/twenty-big-cat...
- rapnie 2y agoamp? is that still a thing?
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y agoIt shouldn't be.
- debacle 2y agoAs a homesteaders, very frightened by this. Many farmers I know gladly feed their poultry raw chicken scraps, eggs, etc. It takes one sick animal to lose dozens.
- ternnoburn 2y agoFeeding animals their own species is a recipe for disease outbreaks. I'm astonished every time I hear about it.
- madaxe_again 2y agoIt’s like they never heard of scrapie, kuru, or vCJD - or they just figure it can’t happen here.
- ainiriand 2y agoYeah, I think at this point it is safer to just skip meat entirely or only eating meat from known sources.
- bagels 2y agoI won't feed my backyard chickens any poultry products, cooked canned or otherwise. No sense in exposing them to the same species diseases and prions.
- lalalali 2y agoI'm curious about your economy as a homesteader, what do you produce for yourself or trade? how does your days/seasons look like? Do you see your days are easy chores or hard chores (no pun intended)? What's your long term todo list ? Regarding your fear, is it because the farmers you know lives close to your own poultry ?
- discardedrefuse 2y agoNot exactly related, but there was just a recall put out on some pet foods because of bird flu. Seems a house cat died from it. And several more died from raw milk. https://www.axios.com/2024/12/25/bird-flu-pet-food-recall-northwest-naturals-cat-death https://www.axios.com/2024/12/25/bird-flu-pet-food-recall-no...
- zelon88 2y agoMy cat was ill this past weekend but recovered. Then I saw the article you mention and it started me thinking. I've only fed my cat Friskies wet cat food recently. I think I'm going to try to stick with the seafood flavors for a while.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago[dead]
- salt-thrower 2y agoWhat?
- ternnoburn 2y agoReal nervous we're all ignoring this one. It's like learned nothing in the past four years.
- chrisbrandow 2y agoI hear people saying this, but at the same time, I feel like I read about bird flu almost daily in stories that involve scientists and researchers, so I’m not sure who is ignoring it or what we should be doing differently.
- ngcc_hk 2y agoThe standard wolf crying scenario. We just be eating by the wolf at the end of the story.
- perihelions 2y ago- "so I’m not sure who is ignoring it or what we should be doing differently" It's the US government who's ignoring it. They're acting as if they have inverted priorities—putting agricultural industry interests first, as well as short-term politics and optics. The federal vaccine effort seems to at the token-effort level, on track to repeat 2020 all over again. I'm inferring this from looking at budget figures: Warp Speed spent (I think) $18 billion in 2020, while the current efforts total just 1-2% of that [0] (mostly one single grant to Moderna). That looks to me on track to repeat 2020: a year or more without a (fully deployed and mass-produced) vaccine—tens of trillions in losses in the future, because government leaders aren't proactive-thinking enough to invest a few billion today. (Here's a remarkable figure from [0]: the federal government is currently spending 7x more subsidizing livestock farms for their economic hardship from HPAI than on developing vaccines for it). Another major failing is the lack of effort (again mirroring 2020) on monitoring early outbreaks. The pandemic strain of HPAI doesn't yet exist. It's likely to come into existence, if there's large numbers of HPAI human infections, simultaneous with infections with human-adpated influenza strains—that's where you'd get the highly transmissible pandemic strain, from genetic crossover with ordinary flu. But: most farm worker HPAI outbreaks are going unnoticed [1,2]. There's very little concerted effort to monitor and prevent crossover infections in the high-risk sectors, on livestock farms. (Again, I feel we're repeating 2020: prioritizing short-term industry considerations over public welfare—as if it's more important to minimize hardship to the dairy industry, than to prevent a pandemic). Sure; there's token government efforts that look like they're helping keep farm workers safe—but empirically they're simply not working. A complication is that this industry hires large numbers of undocumented/illegal farm labor: people who deliberately avoid interactions with government officials; as well as people who avoid or are priced out of healthcare access. [0] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/24/health/america-bird-flu-next-pandemic-kff-health-news/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/24/health/america-bird-flu-n... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/health/bird-flu-diaries-farmworkers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/health/bird-flu-diaries-f... [2] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-11-26/bird-flu-warnings-are-going-unheeded-at-many-dairy-farms https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-11-26/bird-fl...
- uptecwa 2y agoFor those in California, our union, University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) has blown the whistle on the inadequate avian bird flu testing in the state. There is only one lab rated in the state of California at UC Davis that is responsible for timely testing of poultry and dairy. You can read the article at the following: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-12-01/lab-workers-conducting-californias-avian-flu-testing-report-mismanagement-overwork-burnout-amid-outbreak-season https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-12-01/lab-worker... We had an informational picket at UC Davis two weeks ago, and you can find more details at our website at https://upte.org/news/upte-members-at-uc-davis-blow-the-whistle-on-dangerous-lab-conditions-in-the-facility-testing-dairy-and-poultry-for-bird-flu https://upte.org/news/upte-members-at-uc-davis-blow-the-whis... The University of California system has failed to keep the health and safety of our food supply in safe and working order, with lab testing sometimes waiting weeks for turn around, causing avian bird flu to spread and causing mass culling of chickens, and tainting diary, and increasing the likelihood of animal to human spread. UPTE members at CAHFS are raising concerns about severe understaffing and unsafe working conditions that jeopardize their critical role in testing for diseases like Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1). After five out of seven lab workers quit since January due to inadequate compensation and a lack of support, the timely and accurate monitoring of our nation's food supply is at risk, potentially leading to catastrophic outbreaks affecting poultry and human health. Your can support us by urging CAHFS management to address these issues and protect the health and safety of our communities. You can help by emailing the Dean of Veterinary Medicine, Dean Dr. Mark Stetter to support staffing and safety at CAHFS using the following link: https://upte.org/cahfs https://upte.org/cahfs
- bagels 2y agoWhy is it the responsibility of the universities and not the state generally?
- oefrha 2y agoProbably because they’re trying to put pressure on California Animal Health & Food Safety Lab System (CAHFS) which is affiliated with UC Davis and jointly advised by University of California and California Department of Food and Agriculture.
- addicted 2y agoThe normalization of eating dead animal flesh and using other animal products is one of the greatest threats to humanity. It’s the greatest source and risk for pandemics. The horrible conditions in which the animals are raised means they’re far bigger consumers of antibiotics than humans, greatly reducing the efficacy of antibiotics for humans. It’s one of the larger direct sources of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s one of the greatest sources of water and land pollution. It’s one of the largest reasons for deforestation. And it’s one of the largest sources of land use and clearing while providing only a tiny fraction of the world’s calories (and protein, for that matter). You don’t need to be an ethical vegan to recognize there’s something horribly wrong here.
- smt88 2y agoEating animals wasn't "normalized". It is normal. We couldn't exist as a species without that adaptation. The problem now is the scale and methods of farming that meat. Reducing meat consumption is a worthwhile pursuit, but it's not meaningfully going to change any time soon, so it's better to target the farming practices.
- UberFly 2y ago"one of the greatest threats to humanity" It's literally one of the main reasons you exist. Without humans eating animals we'd have gone extinct ages ago. It's as much a part of humanity as breathing oxygen.
- trimethylpurine 2y ago
- _heimdall 2y agoI wish reporting like this, and research behind it, gave more consideration to the animals' living conditions. The article mentions that large cats were kept separate in 30'x40' (around 10m by 12m) enclosures. They eat whatever the zoo provides, meaning the animals don't have free choice as they would in the wild. Everyone I've met over the years who work at zoos absolutely love the animals and care deeply about the job. They would notice any visible or behavioral indicators of stress. That said, though, those conditions aren't natural. It could simply be that germ theory is correct and the animals were perfectly healthy until the pathogen was introduced. Its also possible, though, that keeping wild animals isolated in confined pens isn't a good situation regardless of husbandry practices.