What was recalled
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health warning on December 31, 2024 targeted all Monarch Raw Pet Food products sold at California farmers markets in Laguna Niguel, Orange, San Jacinto, and Fountain Valley. Unlike the Northwest Naturals (December 2024) and Wild Coast Raw (early 2025) events — which followed traditional manufacturer-initiated voluntary recall paths after USDA NVSL genetic confirmation — the Monarch event proceeded as a public health warning rather than a formal recall because the manufacturer disputed the H5N1 link in its product.
The trigger was a house cat in the Los Angeles area with laboratory-confirmed H5N1 infection that had been fed Monarch Raw Pet Food. Samples of the food collected from the household also tested positive for H5N1. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health concluded the food was a probable infection source and recommended consumers stop feeding Monarch product. The household contained five cats total; the four cats not lab-confirmed were presumed infected based on shared exposure to the same food and household environment. Coverage at the TODAY Health news report documents the timeline and the manufacturer’s pushback.
Why it was recalled
The 2024-2025 U.S. HPAI H5N1 outbreak strain (genotype B3.13) is now widely distributed in U.S. commercial and wild poultry, dairy cattle, and a growing range of mammals. Raw cat food sourced from U.S. poultry during this active outbreak carries category-level H5N1 exposure risk because routine pet food pathogen testing panels do not include avian influenza and standard raw-food processing does not reliably inactivate the virus in muscle meat. The LA County investigation followed the same epidemiologic logic the Oregon Department of Agriculture used for Northwest Naturals: indoor-only house cats with no wild-bird exposure cannot have acquired H5N1 from environmental sources, leaving raw food as the probable infection source when food samples test positive for the matching strain. The manufacturer’s position — that the food was not conclusively linked to the cat illness — reflects a real epidemiologic debate about whether food samples and patient samples must achieve full genetic-sequence match (which Northwest Naturals did) versus PCR-positive co-detection (which Monarch did) to establish causation.
Health risks for your pet
Feline H5N1 presents with the same acute pattern documented in Northwest Naturals and Wild Coast Raw cats: severe lethargy, anorexia, respiratory distress, fever, and rapidly progressing neurologic signs including ataxia, tremors, seizures, and cortical blindness. Symptoms appear within days of exposure and progress over 24-72 hours. Published feline H5N1 mortality is above 50% in symptomatic cases. In the Monarch household, four of five cats were presumed infected based on shared exposure — a clustering pattern that increases concern about communicable spread within multi-cat households once one cat acquires H5N1 from a food source. The zoonotic risk to humans remains documented; the CDC tracks human H5N1 cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers during the 2024-2025 outbreak. Pet owners feeding raw should follow CDC handling-hygiene protocols (separate prep surfaces, immediate handwashing, no cross-contamination with human food) even when no H5N1 detection has been reported, because the outbreak epidemiology means raw poultry product carries baseline exposure risk.
What to do if you bought affected product
If you purchased Monarch Raw Pet Food at one of the California farmers markets in Laguna Niguel, Orange, San Jacinto, or Fountain Valley, do not feed it to any pet and dispose of it securely so wildlife cannot scavenge it. Wash food bowls, prep surfaces, and hands with hot soapy water; H5N1 is inactivated by standard household disinfectants and heat above 60°C. If your cat ate Monarch product and shows lethargy, respiratory distress, or neurologic signs, contact your veterinarian immediately and disclose the raw-food exposure. State veterinary diagnostic labs in California (CDFA, UC Davis VMTH) provide PCR testing for suspected feline H5N1. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health continues to monitor for additional household clusters and recommends pet owners avoid feeding raw poultry product to cats during the active HPAI outbreak.
How this affects KibbleIQ’s grade
Monarch Raw Pet Food is not in the KibbleIQ scored database — our methodology v15 covers commercial dry kibble, fresh cooked food, and selected raw-coated kibble per our published methodology. The December 2024 event reflects the same category-level raw-poultry-during-HPAI-outbreak risk pattern documented in Northwest Naturals, Wild Coast Raw, Savage Pet, and RAWR cat food events from the same six-month window. The manufacturer’s dispute of the link is a real epidemiologic question rather than a quality-systems credit or debit — food samples tested positive for H5N1 and a cat in the household became ill, but full genetic-match confirmation between the food sample and the patient sample is the gold-standard traceback evidence and was not publicly reported for the Monarch event. Pet owners considering raw cat food in 2025 should weigh the documented multi-brand H5N1 cluster as a category-level signal: raw poultry pet food during active HPAI circulation carries structural exposure risk that brand quality-systems alone cannot fully mitigate.