As avian flu continues to spread to new species, it has killed two wild cougars on the Olympic Peninsula.
The fatalities were confirmed Thursday by Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organization, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Around the same time, one of the large cats was discovered nearby, while the other was being tracked with a collar. The number of other cougars or other species that might be sick on the peninsula is unknown because the locations of the majority of animals are not monitored. According to Mark Elbroch, director of Panthera’s puma program (puma is another name for mountain lion, or cougar), it is one of the reasons these deaths are so alarming.
According to Elbroch, the fact that cougars are top carnivores begs the question of how common the disease is further down the food chain. It raises eyebrows and makes one question if it’s a sign of a larger, unseen trend. It’s concerning.
Washington has been experiencing the virus, commonly known as Type A H5N1, since at least 2022, when the state Department of Agriculture certified that it was present in multiple backyard flocks of chickens. WDFW confirmed incidences of the illness in wild birds shortly after. In 2024, bird flu killed more than half of a colony of terns at Port Townsend. In 2023, the disease spread from seabirds to harbor seals, and the first recorded case of marine mammals dying from it on the West Coast occurred.
According to department data, 14 confirmed and probable cases of the virus had been identified as of early November, with the first human cases being reported in the state in October. The interaction with poultry was the cause of those cases. There is currently no proof that avian flu is spread from person to person in Washington.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is little chance that the virus will harm people.
A state of emergency was proclaimed by California authorities this month due to the outbreak of avian flu. The Associated Press reports that since the virus was initially discovered in U.S. dairy cows in March of last year, it has been verified in at least 866 herds in 16 states, and more than 60 individuals in eight states have also contracted it.
After being observed weak and semicollapsed in a meadow, a homeowner in the vicinity of Blyn, Clallam County, reported the first sick peninsula cougar, a male wild cougar that was between two and three years old and had no collar. The animal was so afflicted by the sickness that it was so thin and in pain that it was unable to leap a three-strand barbed wire fence, which is ordinarily only a hop for an animal of that size.
Elbroch claimed that it was unable to raise its tail at all. All he was doing was pulling it through the muck and water. He was a living ghost who had just lost all of his cougarness. WDFW put the animal out of its agony by euthanizing it. Testing revealed that avian flu was the cause of death.
Panthera had affixed a tracking collar to the second animal, which was likewise a young male, approximately 2 1/2 years of age. According to Elbroch, the animal was dead when the signal revealed no movement for eight hours. According to the collar data, Panthera researchers were aware that he had been feeding frequently in the forest and on beaches west of Port Angeles to Clallam Bay, consuming anything from seabirds to seal pups that were snatched from the shore, in addition to forest prey.
Instead than spreading from one cougar to another, the sickness is contracted by eating anything that has already contracted the infection from another cougar. According to Elbroch, cougars frequently eat raccoons, and raccoons that are not ill enough to perish could have served as a disease vector for the cougar. Alternatively, an infected seabird might have been consumed by the cougar.
The collared cat, Zepplin, appeared flawless, robust, and healthy in contrast to the first cougar, but Elbroch claimed that he was dead. The illness was confirmed by brain stem testing. According to him, the sickness can sometimes kill an animal so fast that it doesn’t even show any signs.
According to Elbroch, the disease is detrimental to a community that is already struggling because of the population’s isolation, decreased genetic variety, and higher rates of inbreeding, all of which can make it more susceptible to illness.
However, hunting, car accidents, and confrontations with people, particularly their livestock, are the main causes of mortality for Washington cougars, which leads to WDFW’s deadly removals.
Staci Lehman, the WDFW’s director of communications, said in an email that the recent revelation is not surprising because the CDC has said that other species may become sick as the viruses continue to evolve.
In addition to the current raccoon and cougar occurrences, WDFW has documented H5N1 illnesses in harbor seals in Puget Sound, striped skunks and a bobcat in northeast Washington, and raccoons in other locations since 2023. According to a recent study from the agency, H5N1 has also been found in bobcats, striped skunks, and red foxes in other North American states.
The department warns against allowing pets to scavenge dead animals in order to safeguard them. Steer clear of handling any dead or sick animals for your own safety.
In order for biologists to look into the deaths and collect samples for testing, WDFW is asking people to report sick or dead animals they come across using the department’s online survey form as the disease spreads.
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