TAK, Thailand (Reuters) - The bird flu epidemic that has killed 31 people in southeast Asia this year may also have killed 23 tigers at a zoo in eastern Thailand, a cabinet minister said Tuesday.

"I磛e received a report this morning that 23 tigers have died and some others have been sick," Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisang told reporters.

"Their preliminary symptoms showed they might have caught bird flu," said Chaturon, who is in charge of the Thai battle against bird flu.

The tigers died after they had been fed raw chicken at the Sri Racha Tigers Zoo, 50 miles east of Bangkok, Yukol Limlamthong, chief of the Agriculture Ministry´s Livestock Development Department, told reporters.

The zoo had been closed from Tuesday because tigers started dying on October 14 and about 30 of the 400 tigers in the zoo were ill, he said.

A clouded leopard died in similar fashion at a Thai zoo earlier this year and scientific studies have shown since that cats can be infected with avian flu, which means pets could spread the disease.

The underlying fear of the bird flu epidemic, which swept through much of Asia early this year, is that the H5N1 avian flu virus could get into an animal that can also host a human flu virus, most likely a pig.

That could produce a mutation that could spread through a human population with no immunity to it and lead to a pandemic like the 1918-19 Spanish flu which killed an estimated 20 million people around the world.

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Thailand confirms that 23 tigers have died from avian flu at zoo

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Twenty-three tigers have died from bird flu at a private zoo in Thailand after being fed the carcasses of chickens infected with the disease, a government official said Tuesday.

The tigers had been dying at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in central Chonburi province since Sept. 14, and the animal park was forced to close its doors to the public while authorities investigated, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director of the Bird Flu Prevention and Elimination Center.

"We´ve discovered that all 23 dead tigers had bird flu," he said. "We´ve found that another 30 tigers are sick. We believe that the tigers contracted bird flu because they ate chicken carcasses, and we believe the carcasses had bird flu."