March 15, 2025

The New York City Department of Health is advising cat owners not to feed Savage Cat Food to their cats after the bird flu virus was confirmed in two cats. A third cat also was suspected of being infected with the virus.

Two of the three cats had eaten Savage Cat Food, poultry packets lot number 11152026. The third cat had not been fed this product, but had come into contact with one of the other sick cats.

Both cats with confirmed infections died; the third cat became ill with symptoms consistent with bird flu, but survived and was not tested.

Cat A became ill earlier this month, and was hospitalized with fever, loss of appetite and severe respiratory disease and died as a result of its infection. Testing for the H5 bird flu virus was conducted by the Cornell Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Confirmatory H5N1 testing by the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) is pending.

Cat B became ill in February 2025 with fever and severe respiratory and liver disease and also died as a result of infection. The cat was confirmed by the NVSL to be infected with the H5N1 virus. Additional testing recently performed at NVSL suggests the cat was infected with an H5N1 strain related to that found in Savage Cat food, lot 11152026. Cat B did not consume the Savage Cat Food, but had come into contact with Cat C.

Cat C became ill with fever after consuming Savage Cat Food lot number 11152026, but survived. The cat was not tested for bird flu at the time of its illness, and cannot be tested now as too much time has elapsed.

The chain of events

On February 17, 2025, Savage Cat Food posted a notice on the company’s website advising its customers that a cat in Colorado had developed bird flu after consuming Lot 11152026 of the company’s raw poultry cat food.

Colorado State University tested a sealed package of the food and detected the H5 virus using PCR technology. The company initiated a “market withdrawal” while awaiting virus viability test results from the National Veterinary Services Laboratory.

The NVSL was unable to recover live H5N1 virus from the sample.

Upon learning that the New York City cats had been exposed to the same batch code of raw cat food as the Colorado cat, the company announced it would convert its “market withdrawal” to a voluntary product recall.

The recall covers product with lot code/best buy date of 11152026 which was sold in Large and Small Chicken Boxes in November 2024.

As the product has been shipped across state lines, we can expect a recall notice to be posted on the FDA’s website in the next few days.

How can “negative” product cause infection?

Savage Cat Food is not the first example of a raw pet food that tested positive by PCR for the H5 bird flu virus, but tested “negative” for live virus. A similar situation occurred with Northwest Naturals raw frozen pet food in December 2024.

Microbiologists know well that microbes—whether bacteria or viruses—are not uniformly distributed in a solid food. Especially if contamination is low, a pathogen might be present in only one or two packages out of a hundred, possibly less. And a contaminated package might only harbor the pathogen in one small zone within the box.

It is not unusual in foodborne disease outbreak investigations for the source of the outbreak to be identified based on epidemiology (eating patterns), without the outbreak strain ever being recovered from a sample of the implicated food.

That is what occurred with Northwest Naturals, and that is what has happened (so far) with Savage Cat Food.

What cat owners should know

The New York City Department of Health strongly encourages New Yorkers whose cats are experiencing illness after consuming Savage Cat Food products or other raw meat or dairy products to contact their veterinarian.

Symptoms of H5N1 bird flu virus infections in cats may include:

• Fever
• Lethargy
• Low appetite
• Reddened or inflamed eyes
• Discharge from the eyes and nose
• Difficulty breathing
• Neurologic signs, like tremors, seizures, incoordination, or blindness

The New York City Department of Health offers the following tips for pet owners:

• Avoid feeding pets raw food or raw milk 
• If you pet has eaten raw food and shows sign of sickness, call your vet immediately and isolate from other pets 
• Keep your cats indoors 
• If you are walking your dog, avoid dead or sick animals 

“A complete and compelling account of the hidden and not-so-hidden ways the food we give our beloved pets can be contaminated.” – JoNel Aleccia, Health Reporter, Food & Nutrition, The Associated Press.

“An invaluable resource for busy pet owners” – Food Safety News