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Bird Flu Is Now Killing Cats at a 90% Fatality Rate – Experts Warn It Could Jump to Humans (scitechdaily.com)

submitted 1 day ago by Enjoyer_of_Games@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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need to replace c/covid with c/pestilence

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[-] Tommasi@hexbear.net 29 points 1 day ago

The article is interesting, but it's obvious they picked the most alarmist, misleading headline possible, where they make it sound like this is likely to explode into a hyper deadly pandemic at any moment.

Both WHO and CDC considers the public health risk from avian flu low, but not non-existent. It's obviously important that these organizations monitor and stay vigilant about diseases like this, but there isn't any reason to believe we're looking at another pandemic or major public health crisis.

Here is the WHO's most recent report, which I really recommend going through if you get anxious from headlines like this: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/updated-joint-fao-who-woah-public-health-assessment-of-recent-influenza-a(h5)-virus-events-in-animals-and-people_apr2025

[-] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago

Oh, good. Thanks.

[-] Zuzak@hexbear.net 25 points 1 day ago

Common outdoor cat L

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 90 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I sure love living in a society that doesn't bother to protect itself against easily avoided threats.

improve-society "M'lord a blizzard is coming, perhaps we should build shelter, or even a fire."

pronouns "HERATIC! HOUSES ARE DRACONIAN! THIS WILL CULL THE WEAK, MAKE US STRONG *his child dies" GOD WILLED IT!"

[-] Lyudmila@hexbear.net 84 points 1 day ago

This one simple trick makes it impossible for your cat to get bird flu

border-diagonal-cross outdoor-cat

[-] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago

Unless I get it and give it to them.

Or my dog tracks something in on her paws.

Or my dog catches it and gives it to them.

Or my parents cats who they fucking refuse to try and keep inside will catch it and expose my cats even though they’re kept separate.

Or a sick bird smacks into the window

[-] Lyudmila@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Avoiding outdoor exposure and not feeding your cat raw food are genuinely your best bet.

The likelihood of you transferring it to your cat is extremely low, essentially impossible. If you and your family don't work in animal agriculture, animal husbandry, or meat processing, you're not going to catch it in the first place. All of the fear right now is on animal-to-human exposure, because the virus is spread by physical contact. (particularly physical contact with bodily fluids)

Again, avoiding outdoor exposure is your best bet. Don't let your dog chase birds or eat bird poop. Don't let cats outside and make others aware of the high risk to both the cat and themselves.

Window strikes shouldn't be a major risk factor for spread, but preventing them is worth doing regardless. Dotted marker grids placed on the outside of the window and spaced around 5cm are really effective. White for reflective window strikes and black for fly-through window strikes. I bought a bunch in bulk and just throw 'em up on every window every time I move. I genuinely don't even notice them from the inside.

[-] DivineChaos100@hexbear.net 30 points 1 day ago

Straight edge outdoor cats

[-] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 46 points 1 day ago

i remember reading about wet food that was contaminated with the bird flu so its not a 100% efective trick

[-] da_gay_pussy_eatah@hexbear.net 40 points 1 day ago

Second simple trick: no raw food

[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

Third trick

vodka chicken

H7N9 on raw chicken remained viable at −20°C for 9 days, 4°C for 7 days, and 25°C for 4 days; therefore, H7N9 on raw chicken could be a potential source of transmission domestically and internationally.

Second, we investigated the virucidal effects of six standard disinfectants—household bleach, ethanol, hand soap, peracetic acetic acid, lactic acid, and acetic acid—on H7N9 and H5N8 (clade 2.3.4.4b) on raw chicken (appendix p 2). HPAI viruses such as H7N9 and H5N8 were not susceptible to 2 min incubation with hand soap or lactic acid; however, no infectious virus could be detected after a 2 min incubation at room temperature with the other disinfectant agents.

[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago

Looking at data from 2004 to 2024, researchers uncovered 607 cases of bird flu in cats around the world, including 302 deaths. These cases spanned 18 countries and involved 12 different types of cats, from household pets to big cats like tigers.

Being the "no outdoor cats" change you want to see in the world

[-] Llituro@hexbear.net 50 points 1 day ago

do NOT give your cat a little piece of raw chicken as a treat rn

[-] Cimbazarov@hexbear.net 37 points 1 day ago

We're done aren't we doomjak

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 46 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Laughs in ecologist that has known we were done for decades now

agony-shivering

[-] Crucible@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

yea

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” Aldo Leopold

I think about this quote a lot

[-] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago

But dirt owl, how fast will we be done?

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't know, like 20-50 years

[-] Bakzik@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

Comrade Dirt Owl, is there any book that I can read about the FREAKING ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE AND THE ESTIMATED EFFECTS FOR THE NEXT DECADES!!!????

Thank you.

lea-blush

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ah, well, there is a lot of research on it in a lot of different fields... I struggle to think of a single source that sums it up nicely.

Let me try and find some reports. One moment.

Edit: here

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/climate-scientists-world-we-have-only-20-years-theres-no-turning-back

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair

Otherwise you'll have to go search what you need from the Journal of Environmental Sciences https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-environmental-sciences

It's grave, but giving up isn't an option. Gotta keep surviving.

[-] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago

David Wallace-Wells put out 'The Uninhabitable Earth' which I think is supposed to be worst case scenario.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fighting-climate-action-uninhabitable-earth-author-david-wallace-wells-podcast-ncna979551

I often go back to this interview specifically for this moment:

I was talking to a really prominent climate scientist a few months ago, who was one of the lead authors of the IPCC last report, and has been doing a lot of consulting work in New York City where he lives. So I said, "Are we gonna build a sea wall in New York?" And he said, "Oh, of course we'll build a sea wall. Manhattan real estate's way too expensive to lose." But those kinds of projects ... You look at the subway, it takes 30 years.

If we started now, he said, we couldn't build it fast enough to save parts of Howard Beach, South Brooklyn, Queens. He said, "The city knows this, and you're gonna start seeing them stopping infrastructure repair, not doing work on the subway lines and even telling those residents explicitly, 'You might be able to live here for another 20 years, but you're not gonna be able to leave this house for your kids.'"

As far as I'm aware they still haven't started. From an article in 2024:

https://newrepublic.com/article/178452/clean-air-rich-luxury-good

[-] FedPosterman5000@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago

That guardian article, while depressing, was actually really nice for remembering we’re not alone in the despair, and in the technical/political struggle. Sometimes, after spending time with “ordinary fuckin people”, I’m almost convinced to ignore my lying eyes- fortunately the seeming omnipresence of convective cells reminds me.

[-] tocopherol@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago

I spend a decent amount of time with extremely "ordinary fuckin people", and they really aren't the worst, most people just seem to be tuned out. But especially with regards to the climate crisis and capitalist greed destroying us all, the majority of people seem to be in agreement.

[-] FedPosterman5000@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

For sure, I was just watching the show “party down” and the repo man quote stuck so I had to parrot it lol. But yeah in this age it’s information overload, so it makes sense to tune out. Especially if one perceives they’re doing their best, but it’s not helping or being acknowledged.

So then imo it’s easy to try and divide “ordinary” people from “ivory tower” practitioners when it comes to climate, by leaning on the implication individuals aren’t doing enough (contributing to alienation from the movement), can’t do more without an advanced degree (furthering alienation and sometimes disdain for practitioners), and that action to combat climate change will threaten whatever livelihood/stability they have more than the affects of climate’s itself (creating a strawman of climate activists).

“Getting to the Heart of Science Communication” is a book I really like; largely about “meeting people where they’re at”, but also understanding the path/traumas that have led there. So while I joke about mingling with “ordinary people” it really is the most rewarding; sometimes you’re the first person someone can “come out to” about climate woe, and then once their feelings are in the open, one can listen, learn, and guide them to contribute in the manner best fitting their means. In the process, you’re hopefully heading off hopelessness and tuning out, and building a community around an issue that affects the whole community. Grassroots action - who’da thunk

[-] Bakzik@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Thank you very much! Also thanks to JoeByeThen!

It's grave, but giving up isn't an option. Gotta keep surviving.

Totally. At the end of the day, we need to keep fighting.

Hasta la victoria, siempre.

[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago

The timeline is really more like a hundred years at least, and even then you're relying heavily on catastrophic and sometimes dubious tipping points

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

Based on?

[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Which part? Things like the clathrate gun hypothesis, or that it will likely be hundreds of years and still a lot of effort for humanity to be done?

For the latter, I think you can take the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum as the "done" point (I don't really agree there is such a point because people already live in ridiculous conditions now, and you can protect yourself from a wet bulb event for the price of a car) and from memory under RCP 8.5 (and drilling up the arctic) the IPCC modelling put that at a couple hundred years off.

[-] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Dirt Owl lore drop

[-] jjsandwich7@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago

what-the-hell that ain’t good

[-] shath@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

No no no no no no

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 day ago

I'm sure it's fine.

🙂

[-] Euergetes@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago

bird flu has been revolutionarily indoctrinated on the issue of outdoor cats and has stepped into the ring anarchista-chad

trust the plan

[-] sooper_dooper_roofer@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

I thank the supreme race every day for creating covid

[-] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

I'm fine with the cats... They're invasive and need a major culling

[-] Enjoyer_of_Games@hexbear.net 25 points 1 day ago

First it came for the birds and I did not speak out because I am not a bird

Then it came for the cats and I did not speak out because I am not a cat

[-] sammer510@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

Don't get too excited because it's not just talking about domestic cats. It is also killing big cats like tigers which definitely do not need any culling right now