Emergency Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease news (USA and Australia)

[Guest guest]

Emergency Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease news (USA and Australia)

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If you have pet rabbits or you care for rabbits in shelters,

there is vital information in this email to help you protect your rabbits

from a deadly disease known as Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease

(there have been 3 recent outbreaks of RHD in the USA).

 

Please cross post this information to other lists where there are

animal carers and pet owners.

 

In the last year there have been three outbreaks of Rabbit Hemorrhagic

Disease in the USA.

 

These outbreaks have come from unknown sources and one source suspected by

Americans investigating RHD outbreaks is possibly RHD on frozen rabbit meat

which could

be sitting in American supermarkets (no-one is taking the investigation

further as far as we know).

 

I have put all the latest news about RHD in Australia and in the USA on my

website

at http://www.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/decnewsr.htm

 

This page was updated today with a disturbing eyewitness account of one of

the RHD

outbreaks in the USA which also shows links to pictures of some of the

rabbits that died.

 

This information comes from

http://www.kindplanet.org/vhd/victimsaccount.html

 

Anyone who can help Diane of the Sanctuary in the USA to help her spread

RHD information and updates across the USA, please

join the Coalition Against VHD at

http://www.kindplanet.org/vhd/vhd.html

 

Apparently there are at least 5 million pet rabbits in the USA as well as a

large number of farmed

rabbits. All USA rabbits are now at risk from Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease and

people

dealing with rabbits should know what precautions to take and what signs to

look for

if rabbits become sick and die. Unlike Myxomatosis, RHD can travel on

clothing, inanimate

objects and survives freezing and high temperatures. Flies, fleas,

mosquitoes,dust particles and humans may carry RHD. Even birds are suspected

of carrying the disease from place to place.

 

Please read through the whole of the updated RHD page at rabbit information

service

at http://www.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/decnewsr.htm

 

Things you can do to help.

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1. Write to the Australian authorities and protest at the impending

legalisation of RHD food baits

in Australia to kill wild rabbits. A sample letter is there for you to send

on the news page.

2.Take all precautions to protect your rabbits from RHD.

3.If you want to help rabbits and to help spread the RHD warnings and

updates

, please join the coalition against VHD in the USA.

4.You will note on the Rabbit Information Service page a recent paper

written by Dr Brian Cooke

who says Australia is dropping the " local name " for Rabbit Hemorrhagic

Disease.

(RHD was renamed Rabbit Calicivirus in Australia to seem more benign by

leaving out the

" hemorrhagic " word). Don't be fooled. RHD DOES cause hemorrhaging as well as

coagulation.

(A picture of a rabbit with blood coming out of its mouth appears on the

eyewitness account

page mentioned above. Click on the reference to the second picture at the

base of the article)

The name Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease was chosen years ago by international

eminent scientists

after outbreaks of RHD killed millions of rabbits in Europe. RHD first

emerged in 1984

in a shipment of Angora rabbits flown from Germany to China. The Angora

rabbits died soon

after their arrival in China from a new disease named RHD and the rest is

history.

 

Rabbit Information Service

http://www.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/rabbit.htm

 

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to

do nothing.

--Edmund Burke (1729-1797)