Deadly rabbit virus reaches animal shelter in Richmond
Staff at Richmond’s animal shelter are devastated at having to euthanize 66 rabbits believed to be infected with a deadly rabbit virus spreading around the world.
Rabbit hemorrhagic disease, or RHD, is highly infectious. In some cases, it can be up to 100-per-cent fatal. RHD isn’t communicable to other animals or humans.
Eyal Lichtmann said staff at the Richmond Animal Shelter have already watched four rabbits die from the disease.
“We’re told there is no survivability rate for our rabbits,” said Lichtmann, president and CEO of the Regional Animal Protection Society (RAPS), which operates the shelter. “Our staff have watched the disease hit four of our rabbits. To watch how they die is the most terrible experience ever.”
On Monday, the shelter received an email from the Ministry of Agriculture saying that if there is a rapid spread, most, if not all, of the rabbits will die.
“You may as well depopulate both from a contamination perspective and, of course, for humane reasons,” said Heindrich Snyman, veterinary pathologist at the Animal Health Centre, Ministry of Agriculture.
Euthanizing rabbits, Lichtmann said, is particularly upsetting for the shelter, which has a no-kill policy. But it’s the most humane thing to do now that the deadly disease has spread to the shelter.
“Rabbits are a silent animal. During this death, they were screaming at the top of their lungs,” he said. “My staff was in tears watching these animals dying.”
Lichtmann declined to say when the rabbits would be killed. He said he didn’t want to do that because of possible protests from people calling themselves animal-rights advocates. He said staff are being doubly devastated: by the thought of having to euthanize rabbits they have grown to love over years of caring for them and by being on the receiving end of hate calls about euthanizing them.
According to an article in the U.S. National Centre for Biotechnology Information, the virus was first identified in 1984 in the Jiangsu province of China in a group of commercially bred Angora rabbits imported from Germany. In nine months, an estimated 14 million domestic rabbits died in that initial outbreak. By the late 1990s, the disease was reported in 40 countries.
Infected rabbits develop a fever and can die within 12 to 36 hours. Even rabbit fur can be infectious.
“The only clinical signs may be terminal squeals followed rapidly by collapse and death,” according to Iowa State University.
The Sun reported last month that 50 rabbits on Annacis Island had died from the virus. Another outbreak occurred at Nanaimo in late February.
Lichtmann said his shelter tried but failed to stop the disease from infecting its rabbits. Containment measures included only allowing people wearing HAZMAT suits to interact with the rabbits once the disease was identified as reaching Metro Vancouver last month.
“Now it’s our responsibility to stop the disease from going out,” he said.
Doing that, he said, means removing and incinerating all cages and equipment, including the rabbit bodies. He said that will mean the loss of “tens of thousands of dollars” to the society, which built its shelter infrastructure over many years.
Months ago, Richmond had planned to ship the rabbits in May to a sanctuary in Texas. With this outbreak, he predicted that no rabbits from B.C. will be allowed to cross the U.S. border.
He said the 70 vaccines RAPS had ordered to inoculate its rabbits will now be shared with another organization sheltering rabbits.
Lichtmann said he believes RAPS is the first animal shelter in North America to be affected by the disease.