Optimising the Delivery of RHDV to Rabbits for Biocontrol: An Experimental Evaluation of Two Novel Methods of Virus Delivery.

ABSTRACT: Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) is established as a landscape-scale biocontrol that assists the management of invasive European rabbits and their impacts in both Australia and New Zealand. In addition to this, it is also available to land managers to augment rabbit control efforts at a local scale. However, current methods of deploying RHDV to rabbits that rely on the consumption of virus-treated baits can be problematic as rabbits are reluctant to consume bait when there is abundant, green, protein-rich feed available. We ran a suite of interrupted time-series experiments to compare the duration of infectivity of two conventional (carrot and oat baits) and two novel (meat bait and soil burrow spray) methods of deploying RHDV to rabbits. All methods effectively killed exposed rabb

SUBMITTER: Dorji T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10536075 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature