text: Most zoos in North America kept their patrons at some distance from the cats. This policy was put into effect across the US and Canada after several large felines contracted FHF. Fortunately the virus was not universally fatal for big cats. Nevertheless, zookeepers were not taking chances, and, until the course of the disease became better understood, parents were going to have to show their children videos of lions and tigers, pumas and leopards. The only way to view the tigers at the San Diego Zoo was to climb up to a large platform, erected for the purpose, hundreds of feet from the animals and to use field glasses to peer into their compound.
  
  In San Francisco, Minneapolis, and quite a few other American cities, large and small, support groups were launched for helping those who had lost cats cope with their grief. Many who did not feel comfortable in the group milieu visited their own counselors. Psychiatry and clinical psychology were two professions actually benefitting from the crisis.
  
  Three new charities had formed whose purpose was to raise funds for research into a cure for FHF. One of these, Citizens Against The Sickness, had already raised four million dollars, although it had not yet received tax-deductible status from the IRS.
  
  A spokeswoman from CLAWS, an organization notoriously opposed to any use of cats for research, was featured on the CBS evening news. She acknowledged that it might be permissible to test vaccines on cats if this could save the species from extinction.