Bird Flu Is Infecting Cats (and the Occasional Dog). Here’s What to Know....Avian flu spread in cows not being tracked, posing greater risk of human transmission...Bird flu is highly lethal to some animals, but not to others. Scientists want to know why

"Over the past few months, a bird flu outbreak has spread swiftly through dairy cows in the United States, infecting more than 90 herds in 12 states. Along the way, the virus has caused collateral damage in several other species, spreading from dairies to poultry farms and from cows into at least three farm workers, who developed symptoms of mild illness.

It has also caused mounting casualties in cats. On some dairy farms, sick or dead cats have provided an early signal that something was amiss. “They’re a bit of a canary in a coal mine,” Dr. Kammy Johnson, a veterinary epidemiologist for the Agriculture Department, said at a news briefing on Thursday."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/health/bird-flu-cats-dogs-h5n1.html

"Reliance on individual dairy farmers to help track the spread of avian flu is leaving the federal government without the data necessary to understand — and slow — the virus’ spread in the U.S.

The biggest challenge for the federal response, agriculture and public health officials told POLITICO, is that the more the virus spreads among dairy cows, the more opportunity it has to mutate and become easier to jump to additional humans. The number of documented infected dairy herds in recent weeks has risen rapidly — and several other states have confirmed initial infections in cows."
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/17/avian-flu-spread-response-00163294

"In the last two years, bird flu has been blamed for the deaths of millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide. It's killed legions of seals and sea lions, wiped out mink farms, and dispatched cats, dogs, skunks, foxes and even a polar bear.

But it seems to have hardly touched people."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bird-flu-is-highly-lethal-to-some-animals-but-not-to-others-scientists-wants-to-know-why/ar-BB1oeOvy