Abstract
DISAPPOINTMENT has attended the latest experimental work of the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on myxomatosis virus as a means of destroying rabbit populations in the field. On Wardang Island, off the coast of South Australia, a colony of about one thousand adults and as many young, in thirty-three warrens, was built up in a ninety-acre enclosure. The disease was introduced into about half the warrens, and in a hundred days some eight hundred infected animals were collected. Very few warrens not deliberately infected became contaminated. The end result, when the disease had practically disappeared, was almost inappreciable, the death-rate being balanced by the birth-rate. It appears that a sick rabbit leaves its colony, wanders aimlessly away and lives only two to four days. It therefore has little opportunity for infecting other rabbits in its colony, and probably none of giving the disease to other colonies. Thus, although the virus is very virulent indeed, and maintains its toxicity, and although there is no evidence of development of immunity, its capacity to kill off a rabbit population is defeated by the instinctive behaviour of the animal. An insect vector is a possibility that is being explored, though without much hope of success.
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Rabbit Control by Virus Infection. Nature 144, 145 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144145b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144145b0