Rabbit RHD Boost Plus and exploring future RHD Biocontrol

Summary

Rabbits impact on Australian agriculture, ecological communities and 321 nationally threatened species.  This project formed an important element of a nationally coordinated pipeline approach to managing rabbits with:

• release a Korean strain of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus, known as RHDV1-K5 (the first national release of a new rabbit biocontrol agent in 20 years)
• formed a National Rabbit Biocontrol Monitoring Program to track virus impact
• strategic science seeking to culture a virulent calcivirus 

This project identified the presence of another (unknown) rabbit virus, RHDV2 in mid-2015 impacting on the efficacy of RHDV1-K5 release. The RHDV1-K5 national release occurred in March 2017. 323 community release sites were recruited in addition to the 9 intensively-monitored and 29 additional state-run release sites. 218 of the community release sites showed an average reduction in rabbit numbers of 34%, one-month after the release.

The project also showed that community monitoring is a powerful tool to mobilise individuals and groups and extend the reach of a research project far beyond what is possible with traditional science approaches.

The RHD Accelerator component of the project was to select additional RHDV strains for future release. The project team was able to demonstrate experimental selection of a virus with different immunological properties was possible, however, attempts to further select this strain for the ability to overcome immunity to existing RHDV strains were unsuccessful.