More than a dozen tigers have been cremated after contracting bird flu at a zoo in southern Vietnam.
State media VNExpress cited a keeper at the Vuon Xoai Zoological Garden in the town of Bien Hoa who said the animals had been fed raw chicken purchased from nearby farms. The panther and twenty tigers, including several cubs, weighed between 10 and 120 kilos at the time of their death. The bodies were cremated and buried on site.
“The tigers died so quickly. They looked weak, refused to eat and died two days after falling ill,” said zoo director Nguyen Ba Phuc.
Samples taken from the tigers tested positive for H5N1, the virus that causes bird flu.
The virus was first identified in 1959 and has grown to become a widespread and highly deadly threat to migratory birds and domestic poultry. It has since evolved, and in recent years H5N1 has been detected in an increasing number of animals, from dogs and cats to sea lions and polar bears.
In cats, scientists found that the virus attacked the brain, damaging and clotting blood vessels, causing seizures and death.
More than twenty other tigers were isolated for monitoring. The zoo is home to some three thousand other animals, including lions, bears, rhinos, hippos and giraffes.
All 30 staff members caring for the tigers tested negative for bird flu and were in good health, according to VNExpress. Another outbreak broke out at a zoo in neighboring Long An province, where twenty-seven tigers and three lions died within a week in September, according to the newspaper.
Unusual flu strains from animals are sometimes found in humans. US health authorities announced on Thursday that two dairy workers in California had been infected, bringing the total number of cases detected in the country to sixteen in 2024.
“The deaths of forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther at My Quynh Safari and Vuon of wild animals in captivity,” denounced Jason Baker, senior vice president of PETA, in a statement sent to the Associated Press.
“The exploitation of wild animals also endangers global human health by increasing the likelihood of another pandemic,” Baker added.
Avian flu has caused hundreds of deaths worldwide, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected birds.
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