Exciting headline, no?

Plague confirmed in Oregon man bitten by stray cat

Short form: A guy tried to take a rodent away from a stray cat. Cat, unsurprisingly, didn’t care for that and bit the guy. Guy comes down with the Black Death, good ol’ Yersinia Pestis. Sadly, cat has keeled over (no reason given, but presumably because of plague).

Rather than this being a case of “Bad kitty!” this is in fact a case of cats saving our butts. Plague is carried by fleas carried by rodents; they are not carried so much by cats. But cats *do* kill the rodents, which reduced the number of fleas, which reduces the plague.

So remember: if you see someone abusing or killing cats, it may be that this person is in fact an enemy agent trying to infect the local population with the plague. Treat accordingly.