Deadly rabbit virus spread in Alberta ‘like a flash fire’

Janice Romick could see it coming.

The rabbit breeder for 40 years in Cold Lake, Alta., says she saw the writing on the wall before a deadly rabbit virus appeared last month in the southern part of the province.

“We sort of knew this was coming a few years before it actually hit. So we stopped showing and we bought nothing from anybody, anywhere,” said Romick, who works at Beladarus Rabbitry with her daughter.

Alberta’s chief provincial veterinarian sent a communique last month to the Alberta Veterinary Medicine Association warning about an outbreak of rabbit hemorrhagic disease, or RHD, in pet rabbits in one southern Alberta household.

“RHD is a sudden, highly contagious and fatal disease of rabbits. Since the 1980s, RHD virus has been associated with high mortality exclusively in European rabbits,” wrote Dr. Keith Lehman.

“In 2010, however, a new RHD virus emerged capable of causing mortality in both European and North American rabbits and hares.”

There were outbreaks in British Columbia in 2018 and 2019 and in Montana and Oregon earlier this year. The disease runs its course in one to five days and is usually fatal.

Romick said all it takes is for one infected animal to make it into a herd, and it’s over.

“It spreads like a flash fire,” she said.

There’s a booming rabbit industry in Canada. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada says there were more than 2,800 rabbit farms in 2016. Many of the rabbits go to the meat industry, some are harvested for fur and others become family pets.

Romick said the hemorrhagic disease could decimate the industry.

“In the right instance, if it got into some of these big areas where they’re breeding for meat production and they brought in some new stock. It could literally wipe out a business,” she said.

“If it went through a 200-to400-doe barn, it would wipe out every animal, every doe, every buck. And you can’t use those carcasses for human production.”

She added that the disease is also a terrible way for the animals to die.

Dr. Jamie Rothenburger, a veterinary pathologist and assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine, said the disease has to be taken seriously. It can be transmitted by something as simple as grooming or purchasing a pre-owned rabbit cage.

“I think we’re all getting more familiar with infectious diseases in these days of COVID. So the idea of a virus living on a vector isn’t a surprise,” Rothenburger said.

“It’s one of Canada’s immediately notifiable diseases under the Health of Animals regulations. And so, if you suspect the disease as a veterinarian or a laboratory confirms it, the [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] has to be notified immediately.”