Public health officials are warning hunters to cook their bear and cougar meat well after 10 Idahoans contracted a rare strain of trichinosis from tainted cougar jerky.
"Trichinosis occurs throughout the United States, but it usually is . . . the result of eating undercooked pork," said Dr. Jesse Greenblatt, state epidemiologist."An outbreak from cougar meat, to our knowledge, never has been described before" in Idaho or anywhere else, he said.
The type of trichinella, an intestinal roundworm, in the Idaho victims is unusual, Greenblatt said. It is trichinella nativa, previously seen only in bears and walruses in Canada and Alaska.
Unlike other strains, this one does not always die when meat is frozen. That means hunters cannot count on their freezers to protect them.
In nature, only the flesh of meat-eating animals like bears and mountain lions is known to sometimes carry trichinella. The meat of plant-eaters, such as deer and elk, does not.
Meat must be cooked thoroughly to kill larvae that cause the disease.
The Idaho outbreak started when a 38-year-old man from the northern Idaho town of Elk City killed a cougar, made jerky and shared it with 14 friends.
Blood tests of nine of those friends later showed signs of trichinosis. The hunter was hospitalized, but recovered. Seven friends suffered milder illness.
John Beecham, wildlife research manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, has eaten cougar meat and he likes it.
"It has a texture and color very similar to pork," he said.
But Beecham has made it a personal policy not to eat cougar jerky, because meat-eating wild animals can carry a parasite.
"I don't even let someone else cook it for me," he said. "I do it myself."