From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BEIJING–The avian flu H5N1 killed an endangered clouded
leopard on January 27 at the Khao Khiew Zoo in Chonburi province,
Thailand, environment minister Prabat Panyachatraksa confirmed on
February 13, after two weeks of rumors. The leopard was fed mainly
chicken carcasses. A white tiger also became ill, but recovered.
The Khao Khiew Zoo and four other leading Thai zoos closed
their bird exhibits several days earlier, after 36 pheasants, pea
fowl, and Siamese firebacks died at a rare bird menagerie in Suphan
Buri province.
Pin Lyvun, director of the Phnom Tamao zoo in Cambodia,
told the Melbourne Age that 56 wild birds had died there as of
February 15, and that the zoo had killed 400 parakeets after some of
them died mysteriously. The zoo thereafter closed its bird exhibits.
The death of the clouded leopard was soon followed by menu
changes at the Beijing Zoo–not well-appreciated by the first
observers. “Gone are the lions and tigers’ live chicken dinners,”
lamented the Malaysia Star on February 11, in translation from the
China Daily. The big cats were switched to a more natural diet of
raw beef and mutton, the Malaysia Star and China Daily reported.
Western zoo experts have for more than a decade urged Chinese
counterparts to stop feeding live animals to carnivores. Chinese
zoo directors, however, have seen live feeding as a gate
attraction, contrary to lessons learned by most U.S. and European
animal exhibitors generations ago, and have defended the practice by
insisting that live feedings keep predators mentally fit.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

GUANGZHOU, Guangdong– H5N1 pushed Sudden Acute Respiratory
Syndrome out of the news, but China and the World Health
Organization remain concerned that it could resurge.
The fourth and last known SARS case from a mid-December 2003
outbreak in Guangzhou was a 40-year-old medical doctor and hospital
director named Liu, who fell ill on January 7. Pronounced recovered
on January 18, he was confirmed as a SARS case on January 24. Liu
was believed to have become infected through his work.
The first known victim of the outbreak was 32-year-old TV
producer Luo Jian, a self-described “environmentalist who is against
the slaughter of living creatures.” Luo Jian fell ill on December
16 with the coronavirus found in civets, but swore he had never
eaten or handled a civet. Despite media reports that Luo Jian might
have been infected by wild mice or rats, the source of his case
remains unknown.
The second victim was waitress Zheng Ling, 20, who worked
in a Guangzhou restaurant that served civet meat.
The third was a 35-year-old man, of whom little has been disclosed.
Recalling the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which also began with
sporadic cases in Guangdong, and killed 916 people worldwide,
officials ordered the killing of about 10,000 captive masked palm
civets, tanukis (” raccoon dogs”), and hog badgers.

Read more