There’s an outbreak of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus in a Portland suburb (Milwaukie OR, not the misspelled city in WI). If this were a disaster movie (and the previous year has done nothing to convince me otherwise), the next pandemic would start with a fairly innocuous headline like this.
Next we need some graphic death throes to heighten the tension. Here we go: “RHDV2 kills rabbits suddenly, and they’re often found with bloody, frothy discharge around their noses and mouths.”
The final shoe dropping would be some overconfident government official assuring us that there’s no way for the virus to make the leap to humans.
“It poses no risk to human health,” officials wrote…
After that comment, I think the city of MilwaukEE will be bribing your rabbits to attack… (if you notice them with bratwurst and cheese curds, run awaaaaaay…)!
Pandemics have gone from being a once in a several centuries phenomenon to a once in a several decades phenomenon, and with global climate change, people will likely be living in tighter spaces, along with other disease-carrying hosts. The result is that we may see COVIDs with alarming frequency.
The difference seems to be that in the past, they took a long time to spread- something like COVID-19 would have had to spread via ship or land transportation, and today they can spread much, much faster via air transport.
Back in the 60s the Uk government was concerned that rabbits were undermining railway embankments and roads. They infected them with Myxomatosis which was nearly 100% fatal to our wild rabbits.
I recall seeing sick rabbits on grass verges and it pretty much killed off the rabbit meat trade.
The last rabbit I saw with blood all around its nose and mouth was the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.
Would be especially fitting if this real world disease made the infected rabbits, well, rabid, and they all became crazed mass killers. Sort of like the antagonists in zombie movies but much faster & more agile. Smarter too.
In fact, the IPCC has noted that among the anticipated health impacts of climate change are a changed distribution and potentially increased prevalence of some disease vectors. This is in addition to increased morbidity and mortality from heat waves, floods, and droughts.
Well that’s just sad–I live right off the Springwater Trail not far from Milwaukie and it would really suck if this got loose in the wild populations. I really like watching all the Nature’s Little Happy Meals frolicking about, they’re way cuter than the California jackrabbits I grew up with.
