An information session about RHDV1 K5 was held at the Napoleans Memorial Hall last week, as the state prepares for the release of a new strain of the rabbit virus. 

The session was presented by biosecurity manager for established invasive animals, John Mathews. 

The virus will be released at 150 sites in Victoria in 2017 and is intended to combat the ineffectiveness of the current form to control the rabbit population. Landholders can express an interest in obtaining the virus and there have been 757 requests for release nationally. 

The virus works by destroying a benign form of the calicivirus which rabbits normally possess and eligible landholders will receive a vial of the virus to be administered through bait. 

“The virus is an extremely humane method of controlling rabbits, it’s almost like they will go to sleep. They will die very quickly,” Mr Matthews said. 

He said there is no risk to meat, pet or research rabbits if they are vaccinated. 

“No variant of the virus has ever been found in other animals except the European rabbit. The vaccine that protects against the old virus will protect against this new strain.” 

While the virus has only been tested in the laboratory, Mr Matthews said there are four national release sites in Victoria where its impact will be monitored. 

In certain parts of the state, such as Kerang, the North Central Catchment Management Authority, with the backing of the National Landcare Programme, the Victorian Government and the Gannawarra Shire,has already begun paving the way for the release of the new virus. 

“Working with governments, we have protected threatened environmentally sensitive areas at places like Lake Kelly and Lake William, and supported Landcare members with supplies to bait their own properties,” North Central CMA Project Manager Adrian Martins said.

“We also spend a lot of time on education and making information available. That continued in November when we hosted Dr Tarnya Cox of the NSW Invasive CRC and John Matthews of Agriculture Victoria for our Rabbit Buster Roadshow forums.”

When asked about the new strain, Dr Lisa Brown of Greencross Vets in Ballarat, said that she had not heard anything official about the release.

“I suppose it’s the same as the others. There has been quite a lot of research and study,” She said. 

“The only thing is there is a potential risk to pet rabbits. We still don’t have a vaccine for myxomatosis either, which affects quite a few domestic and pet rabbits and is almost always fatal,”  

But vice president of the Rabbit Breeders Association of Victoria, Christina Heaphy, who has been a breeder for 17 years, has been influential in a campaign against the virus.

The campaign has published information on their Facebook page about the need to develop vaccines specific to each strain, based on the belief that the virus has mutated. 

She said that four rabbits she lost in April last year had been vaccinated but still died. 

“The results came back as calicivirus, don’t know if it’s the new or the old one,” Mrs Heaphy said. 

She said there was nothing more devastating than watching infected rabbits die. 

“They’re not just pets, they’re show rabbits. I use the wool.”

Area Coordinator for the Rabbit Breeders Association of Victoria, Andrea Mitchell, also said she was alarmed by the new strain and was not aware that it was being released. 

Mrs Mitchell, who has been breeding since 1984, said standards in Australia already make breeding difficult. 

“We follow the British rabbit council standards of perfection, which means we must only breed to those standards and not breed just anything and everything, its a very well thought out planned production of quality stock,” Mrs Mitchell said. 

“Developing the rarer breeds is also a challenge as the gene pool here in this country is very slim due to importation rules for rabbits, which mean some rare breeds can only go so far in being developed because there aren’t many of them.”

“This is the problem for us in the rabbit fancy (that’s what we call the show world of rabbits)...to breed and develop rare breeds, especially for many years, to get them to a standard and have them die from this very brutal virus.”

Mrs Mitchell said she lost 30 of her show stock last year and that the process of death was actually slow and inhumane. She even believes that the virus had some effects on her own well-being. 

“What the government doesn’t realise is that this virus is spread in the air, it’s carried on the wind, it’s carried on hay, vehicles, shoes etc, it has potentially lethal outcomes for exported goods to exterminate rabbit varieties in other countries. Species of domestic rabbits are being wiped out, how can this be ethical?”