Northwest Naturals brand 2lb Feline Turkey Recipe (Courtesy of Northwest Naturals)
PORTLAND, Ore. - A raw frozen pet food that was sold in Georgia and other states across the country has been recalled after an Oregon house cat's death was connected to bird flu, Oregon authorities said.
Northwest Naturals, a pet food company based in Portland, Oregon, announced on Tuesday it had voluntarily recalled one batch of its two-pound Feline Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food after it tested positive for the virus.
The product was sold through distributors in Georgia, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, as well as Canada’s British Columbia.
"We are confident that this cat contracted H5N1 by eating the Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food," Oregon Department of Agriculture State Veterinarian Dr. Ryan Scholz said in a press release. "This cat was strictly an indoor cat; it was not exposed to the virus in its environment, and results from the genome sequencing confirmed that the virus recovered from the raw pet food and infected cat were exact matches to each other."
The recalled product is packaged in two-pound plastic bags with "best if used by" dates of May 21, 2026, and June 23, 2026.
The company and Oregon authorities said that consumers who bought the recalled product should throw it away immediately and contact the place of purchase for a refund.
For more information on the recall, you can contact Northwest Naturals of Portland at info@nw-naturals.net or (866) 637-1872 from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. PST on weekdays.
Rising bird flu cases in the United States
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First severe case of bird flu reported
Just days after the CDC reassured people that the risk of contracting bird flu remains low among humans, the agency reported the first case of severe illness caused by an infection in the United States.
No human cases of bird flu have been linked to the incident, but those who were in contact with the cat are being monitored for flu symptoms, Oregon authorities said.
More than 60 people in eight states have been infected, with mostly mild illnesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. One person in Louisiana has been hospitalized with the nation’s first known severe illness caused by the virus, health officials said last week.
So far, the CDC has confirmed one human case of bird flu in Oregon. The person was linked to a previously reported outbreak at a commercial poultry operation and fully recovered after experiencing mild illness, according to a November news release from the Oregon Health Authority.
In late October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that a pig at a backyard farm in Oregon was found to have bird flu, marking the first detection of the virus in U.S. swine.
The Source: Information for this story came from the recall by Northwest Naturals and the Associated Press.