A deadly virus is killing wild rabbits in North America

May 21st, 2020

RHDV2 has recently emerged in North America and is devastating their native rabbit and hare species.

We have been closely monitoring the incursion of RHDV2 into the southern US states and Mexico and have been in contact with their wildlife veterinarians to offer any assistance they may require for diagnostics or genomic epidemiology (sequencing) and evolutionary analyses. Although wild rabbits are a major agricultural pest here, this disease is devastating to native rabbit and hare species in other parts of the world, and the native predators that rely on these species. We are saddened and concerned seeing RHDV2 move through those native populations.

Robyn, along with many other experts in the field, spoke to Science magazine about this recently: see the full story at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/deadly-virus-killing-wild-rabbits-north-america