“…The first case was reported in Europe of a cat dying from the deadly strain of bird flu” (Ireland Online ) as H5N1 continues its westward trek across Europe. The housecat was thought to have eaten an infected bird. Panicky advice to keep your housecats indoor results, prompted by fears that infected cats might be a medium in which the virus mutates to a pandemic strain. Certainly we live in closer proximity to our housecats than to avian vectors in the West, except on poultry farms.