The deaths of some big cats in a sanctuary here in my home state have made worldwide news. And because it is rumored that these cats were fed raw meat, this story is making the rounds in all the places where raw feeding is discussed. Devoted raw feeders are jumping to the conclusion that something OTHER than their diets was responsible. Unfortunately, this makes them susceptible to the mainstream media’s extremely specious, industry-promoting, fear-inducing explanations. More about those later.
With regard to what these cats were fed, the only information I could find is this sentence on the sanctuary’s website:
“Every year, we keep over 30,000 pounds of meat from going to landfills.”
The director of the facility says that since the cat deaths they’ve thrown out 8,000 pounds of meat. He also admitted in one news story that the illness “could be food related.” The rest of the story emphasized how the animals are at risk from droppings from “migratory birds,” obviously to promote the new “bird flu” narrative. So, apparently we’re being set up to believe that either contaminated meat or falling bird doo-doo was responsible for these cat deaths.
But, as usual, that just serves an agenda. It has nothing to do with uncovering truth.
Contaminated Meat, Droppings, or Something Else?
People who know how wild animals are fed in zoos and sanctuaries AND who also understand the REAL causes of disease will be looking in an entirely different direction for answers. It’s certainly possible that something besides these cats’ diets was responsible. But if it WAS, it would be tangible factors like recent vaccinations, poisons used in or around their cages or on the animals themselves.
We can be 100% certain it would NOT be a harmless particle of cellular waste (aka “virus”) dropped by a passing migratory bird OR contained within raw meat. That’s the story we hear because it brings lots of money to the companies that own the media. Those companies, incidentally, are owned by the same conglomerates that manufacture the vaccines and other products that will be sold. In other words, it’s not “news.” It’s propaganda. I shouldn’t have to remind anyone reading this that we’ve never heard these diligent journalists do a story about kidney disease being the #1 cause of death among kibble fed domestic cats.
Hidden Fat, again
It is interesting to me that apparently no autopsies were performed on these dead cats, according to Dr. Conor Brady. In my opinion, it’s very likely that if these cats weren’t poisoned outright, their diet WAS implicated. In any event, their deaths would not be attributable to “germs” either in their food or falling from above. What the microscope huggers will miss is that if these cats were eating meat that was otherwise destined for the landfill, their diets were obviously far enough from ideal to produce disease. The meats that these cats would be eating are very likely much higher in fat and lower in protein than cats would be eating in the wild.
That’s because zookeepers are dependent, as most raw feeders are, on meat from AGRICULTURAL animals. Agricultural animals carry excessive fat on their bodies that is put there intentionally. Producers do this in order to profit from their overweight state at the time of slaughter. This creates an enormous macronutrient imbalance that causes a great deal of serious health problems in big cats and every other carnivore that eats it.
Wild vs. Agricultural Diet
Wild carnivores eat VERY lean animals. By contrast, domestic carnivores, whether in zoos or households, eat very fatty animals. And they eat the fattiest parts of those animals to boot. Here’s why: when an agricultural animal is slaughtered, its body is first harvested of the lean portions for the very lucrative human market. At every point in the supply chain after that, the most valuable parts are extracted and the LEAST valuable are passed along. NO industry that’s buying these animals at any point in the chain regards fat to be either valuable enough to use or valueless enough to be discarded. So, it gets passed along until it gets to YOU and ME, in the form of commercial pet food. This is a huge problem, and zoos are not immune, even if they feed raw.
And that’s quite apart from the fact that most zoos are not even financially able or willing to feed raw.
Zoo Diets
Nobody knows how many zoos feed raw and how many feed kibble. The fact IS, however, that the kibble industry has tapped into the zoo market in a big way, much to the detriment of the captive animals. The zoo kibble industry leader is a company called Mazuri, owned by Purina.
It appears these sanctuary cats were not fed kibble. But when zoos and sanctuaries DO feed raw, they cannot afford to be choosy about the meats they feed. The kind of feeding this guy is demonstrating is probably the cream of the crop. Please look at what he’s feeding these cats. Untrimmed chicken quarters with powdered supplements on top. No cat eats like that in the wild.
Zoo Animal vs. Wild Animal Mortality Causes
The vet industry loves to brag that zoo animals live longer than wild animals. But that’s an empty boast when you look closely. If they really do, the difference is very small and it’s only because zoo animals are protected from the life-threatening environmental hazards wild animals must face. Mortality studies on wild animals have shown that disease is WAY down the list of the causes of death. Check out this chart that was done by the Wild Animal Initiative. According to all the objective data, disease is actually rare as a cause of death among wild animals.
A Conundrum
The animals in zoos and sanctuaries, on the other hand, are notoriously unhealthy. According to most studies that have looked at what kills zoo animals, “infectious disease” tops the list. Bear in mind that these animals are always fully vaccinated. Isn’t it odd that wild animals that have no “protection” from these “extremely contagious” and “virulent” diseases succumb to them so infrequently? While zoo animals die from them more often than any other cause?
It’s the Food, Once Again
It’s a testament to the success the medical industry has had in programming the entire populace when people are so willing to ignore the obvious causes of disease in favor of mindless, baseless theories.
Check out the ingredients lists in some of the Mazuri/Purina products that are fed to zoo animals. This is the real reason kibble fed and otherwise misfed zoo animals become “infected” with disease. There’s actually no “infecting” involved at all, it’s simply a matter of bodies becoming saturated internally with uneliminated, indigestible “food.” Imagine yourself living in a cage and eating nothing but ‘fortified’ cereal. How long do you think you’d last?
Nobody needs a microscope to explain why wild animals kept in cages, gawked at all day by the public and fed garbage become sick and die. Even when they die in unusual numbers, like 20 in a 2-month period as in the case of these sanctuary cats. It’s patently ridiculous to look at microorganisms when the source of a problem is as plain and evident as this.
A Genuine Investigation is Needed
If I could thoroughly investigate these cats’ deaths, I’d be asking what changed in their lives recently. Did their diets change in the last few months? Were they or their surroundings treated with any poisons or pesticides? Did the cats receive tick “preventatives,” parasite remedies, ‘medicines’ or vaccines? What were the first symptoms and how were they responded to? If/when this first response produced “side effects,” as they so often do, was it followed with further drug-based meddling?
It should interest any student of health-truth that the symptoms of almost every so-called “infectious” disease start very mildly. Typically these are lack of appetite or general malaise. When these are responded to with COOPERATION instead of force (in any form), the body purifies itself back to health. But that would NOT be happening with these big cats. Being highly valued rare animals, they would be very well attended by vets. The very last thing they would be getting is the digestive rest that would allow their bodies to restore full function and recover from whatever the original assault was.
Same old culprits, same modus operandi
The bare truth is that we’ll never be told ALL the factors that might have led to the deaths of all these cats at once. So nobody can conduct a thorough investigation. The “news reporters” don’t know the real reasons zoo animals die, the sanctuary owners are in the dark as well, and the vets are too fixated on their microscopes to see reality.
But we would be stupid to ignore the fact that this big cat story presents a twofold opportunity, minimally, for the pet sickness industry. Two agendas are being served here: The veterinary industry’s war on raw feeding is advanced and so is the silly new “bird flu” scare. No doubt the latter will soon yield a new vaccine. And as an extra bonus, many gullible pet owners will at least temporarily abandon raw feeding.
This is all very bad news for cats and dogs, but great news for the pet sickness industry. It’s especially bad news for all the animals in the zoos that will now begin feeding kibble because they consider it “safer.” This will further play into the ‘virus’ narrative because many more big cats will become ill and die.
How Should You Respond to this “News?”
If you haven’t already stopped listening to the mainstream news media in matters regarding health, please do so. Like the sickness industry at large, their priorities are not YOUR priorities. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated and gaslit by them. Retain your power. Feed your animals properly, take care of yourself in the best way you can and deprive the sickness industry of its lifeblood (your money).