Saturday, March 30, 2024

Virus takes the top off rabbits

Neal Wallace
A new strain of rabbit-killing virus has achieved average kill rates of 34% in Otago and 40% in Canterbury. Otago Regional Council environmental monitoring and operations director Scott MacLean said kill rates over the 100 sites in the province vary from zero to 80%, the range attributed to the degree of natural immunity in the wild rabbit population.
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The RHDV1 K5 strain, a Korean variant of the RHD virus illegally released in 1997, was released in autumn and MacLean said some farmers hoped for a repeat of the devastating knock-down the initial RHD virus achieved.

But that was never going to happen because the population’s inherent background immunity.

“K5 was never going to be a panacea.”

MacLean said the council had encouraged farmers to continue conventional control with the virus taking the top off the population.

The council is a member of the New Zealand Rabbit Co-ordination Group, a collaboration of regional and district councils, the Conservation Department, Land Information New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries, Landcare Research and Federated Farmers.

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