{"id":40122,"date":"2025-11-09T20:31:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/40122\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T20:31:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:31:01","slug":"humane-society-of-tampa-bay-halts-stray-cat-kitten-intakes-due-to-highly-contagious-disease-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/40122\/","title":{"rendered":"Humane Society of Tampa Bay halts stray cat, kitten intakes due to ‘highly contagious disease’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brief<\/p>\n

The Humane Society of Tampa Bay is halting all stray cat or kitten intakes due to a disease outbreak, officials said.<\/p>\n

The quarantine took effect on Friday and will be in effect until Friday, November 21.<\/p>\n

Feline panleukopenia most often impacts young, unvaccinated or immunocompromised kitten, according to HSTB.<\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla. – The Humane Society of Tampa<\/a> Bay is halting all stray cat or kitten intakes until later this month due to a disease outbreak, officials said.<\/p>\n

What we know<\/p>\n

The shelter said they’ve stopped all stray cat or kitten<\/a> intakes due to a highly contagious and deadly strain of feline panleukopenia, also known as feline distemper. The quarantine took effect on Friday and will be in effect until Friday, November 21.<\/p>\n

READ: Humane Society of Tampa Bay seeing more pet surrenders, offers help amid government shutdown<\/a><\/p>\n

However, shelter officials said they are still accepting surrendered cats that are over four months old \u2013 if space allows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dig deeper<\/p>\n

Feline panleukopenia most often impacts young, unvaccinated or immunocompromised kitten, according to HSTB. It can remain hidden for several days after exposure, but officials said once symptoms appear, it progresses quickly and can be painful.<\/p>\n

What they’re saying<\/p>\n

“This was a heartbreaking but necessary decision, made with great care and guidance from trusted veterinary experts,” the Humane Society of Tampa Bay said in a social media post. “We\u2019ve seen a steady increase in both the number and severity of cases, and it\u2019s our duty to protect our community and help stop the spread of this devastating disease.”<\/p>\n

MORE: Florida woman arrested for abandoning ‘severely neglected’ Great Dane on Jacksonville road<\/a><\/p>\n

What you can do<\/p>\n

Here’s some of the symptoms to look out for:<\/p>\n

HSTB officials said if your cat or kitten is showing signs of the disease, you should contact your veterinarian immediately.<\/p>\n

The Source<\/p>\n

The information in this story was released by the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief The Humane Society of Tampa Bay is halting all stray cat or kitten intakes due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[26889,26890,26891,21884,5954,9257,135,1526,137,136],"class_list":["post-40122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-disease-outbreak","tag-feline-panleukopenia","tag-humane-society-of-tampa-bay","tag-kitten","tag-officials","tag-stray-cat","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}