
Why New Zealand is releasing a rabbit-killing virus - farseer
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43221704
======
toomanybeersies
There seems to be a lot of FUD about releasing calcivirus to kill rabbits.

Calcivirus has been released in the past to control rabbit numbers without any
ill effects on the greater ecosystem in New Zealand. Rabbits should not be a
part of the ecosystem in New Zealand, they are an introduced species with no
natural predators (and very few introduced predators) that destroy the habitat
for native birds and cause soil erosion problems.

RHDV1-K5 is not genetically engineered, it is a natural strain of the virus
from Korea. Rabbits in New Zealand, having not been exposed to this strain
before, have minimal immunity to the virus. The estimates for knockdown in
Australia are up to 40%, they'll probably be more modest in New Zealand, due
to the more varied terrain and isolated populations.

As cute as rabbits may look, they are a disaster for the environment in New
Zealand, along with possums, stoats, ferrets, pigs, goats, wallabies, tahr,
and to a lesser extent chamois and deer.

------
zoltrain
It's seems brutal, but what introduced species have done to NZ's ecosystem is
far far worse. Would anyone knowingly sit back and watch one species that
shouldn't even be in an ecosystem wipe out many native species that exist no
where else on the planet. The Takahē is holding on by a thread, at one point
in a the 1980's it's population was down to 118, in a remote part of New
Zealand (Fiordland). It was thought to be extinct, now conservationist have
gone full send on the effort to protect them and set up sanctuaries on small
remote islands that are pest free (you can never visit this island because
they're rightly super paranoid). They were in a position of, if the hedgehogs
weren't eating their Takahē's eggs, the Stoats were eating their chicks, or
the Rabbits, Deer, and Goats were eating their food supply. This is just one
case, since the introduction of man the vertebrate species native to NZ has
halved, as in half the species are extinct, if anything they're still not
doing enough. The Moa is just one of many species we'll never get to see, the
Haast Eagle is another, they were starved to death.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle)
they also hunted Moa's which is pretty epic, largest bird of prey to have
existed on earth.

------
ggm
I was disappointed by the partial/early release of RHDV1 back in the 1990s in
Australia. Quite apart from being terrible biosecurity (that somehow it got
released from secure facilities before time) I belive it kind-of backfired,
establishing partial immunity in the wild before the official release. Maybe
the news of the time sensationalised it, but it felt like a mis-managed
situation. I hope this RHDV2 release goes well. (I know rabbit owners, I
realize how stressful and upsetting this story may be, but feral rabbits are
huge problem)

~~~
farseer
Enough of a problem to resort to bio warfare?

~~~
eesmith
Yes.

This is also a country which wants to eradicate rats, possums, stoats, feral
cats, and several other predators by 2050. See New Zealand aims to become
predator-free by 2050 , linked to from this article.

See also "The Big Kill - New Zealand’s crusade to rid itself of mammals."
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/big-
kill](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/big-kill) ("mammals" here
does not mean "all mammals").

~~~
robin_reala
New Zealand ridding itself of sheep and people would be an interesting choice.

------
crististm
Beware of messing around with large systems! Your proposed "solution" will
most likely backfire in ways you don't even imagine!

~~~
Lazare
Your comment is rediculous.

Rabbits are a non-native species what were recently introduced and are causing
significant damage. It's very well understood what a NZ without rabbits would
be like; it would be _like the NZ that existed before rabbits_. That's the
point.

(And also like the smaller islands that are already rabbit free.)

~~~
crististm
Humans are notorious for not being as smart as they think they are.

------
krick
Maybe it will actually help, but self-righteousness of the proponents of such
methods never ceases to amaze me. It actually makes the plots of all these
stupid sci-fi movies seem somewhat plausible. You know, the movies where some
technocratic forces (usually military or research group) always do something
so obviously stupid, that it just couldn't happen in real life, with security
protocols and all. You know what happens next. It's borderline hilarious and
terrifying.

I mean, first you (well, your grand-grand-…-grandfathers) introduce new
species to the land. They are absolutely harmless, you have plenty of them at
home and would like to have even more. What can go wrong? When you learn the
answer, you try to fix your fuck up while your parents don't see and introduce
some more new species that apparently fought off these first species back at
home. After all, you are smarter now, you know biology and stuff, you know how
one animals eat the others and can play with this stuff knowingly. Well, this
does the trick, your first little fuck up gets eliminated, but now that second
animal dominates the whole new continent and overall situation got just much
worse. You try this several times and it gets trickier every time, but you are
so sure of yourself, so educated and smart that you just cannot let go, you
are sure you can fix it _this time_. So you artificially construct a virus to
wipe off the harmful population. It seems to help at first, but soon they get
immune to that virus and really good at spreading this virus around. Then the
virus mutates. Scrolling forward, there's no single kangaroo left alive on the
continent, rabbits now can produce nuclear weapons and you still have a new,
final solution that surely will fix the situation this time. Like artificial
kangaroo immune to radioactivity or something, idk…

~~~
eesmith
While entertaining, your description doesn't come close to matching what's
going on in New Zealand.

Rabbits were first brought to NZ in the early 1800s. They caused problems by
the 1870s. [http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-
DruExot-t1-body...](http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-
DruExot-t1-body1-d9.html) . In 1947 the Rabbit Destruction Council was formed.
So this isn't a "when you learn the answer" but when your g'g'grandparents
learned the answer.

It does not appear that any animals were introduced to NZ in order to kill the
rabbits. Perhaps I'm wrong? Ferrets can be used to hunt rabbits, but from what
I gather they are not effective as a population control method.

The RHDV1 K5 virus is not artificially constructed. "It is a naturally
occurring variant of RHDV1, originally found in a rabbit breeding farm in
Korea." \- [https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-
fu...](https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-
fungi/animals/vertebrate-pests/biological-control-of-rabbits/faq) .

More likely, you are thinking of Australia, since NZ isn't usually considered
a continent and since it doesn't have kangaroos.

~~~
krick
You think too much about details. It wasn't supposed to be taken literally,
I'm not talking about NZ in particular, yes, Australia's case was taken for
inspiration, and, yes, I'm aware of RHDV1-K5 not being artificial per se.

It actually feels weird to explain that and, no offense, but I think the fact
you are taking it so literally is actually the essence of what I'm trying to
say here. The details don't change the general fact we have a history of
fucking things up, because "we know science" and "have verified all the
details". And the silliness of all the mistakes of the kind I'm talking about
here is essentially the same — while fully admitting we don't know all the
details, some people are too eager to ignore that and to feel self-righteous
on the basis of checking _all the known details_ and not seeing a problem.

This isn't about RHDV1-K5 — if I had some serious educated concerns about it,
I wouldn't voice them over here (at least not only here). Maybe there won't be
any problems this time, I don't know and I surely hope so. But we have a solid
track of proving otherwise and, I'm sure of that, we are not done with making
mistakes yet.

~~~
eesmith
It's odd to read that I think too much about details, then read you complain
that people don't think enough about all the details of what might go wrong.

Abstractly, what you say makes sense. It's been the heart of much of the
opposition to ecosystem intervention for decades.

But when it gets down to the details, the question is, when should we try to
intervene?

Your comments appears to be "never, because we don't know the consequences."

Which is fine. There may be good reasons against it. But if you justify it
with a story line better suited to a science fiction movie then how much
weight should we place in your opposition?

Or, going the other direction, what sort of response would you want which
would make you feel more comfortable about the plan to use RHDV1-K5?

------
sddfd
Depends on what they expect to happen. This has been done in Australia at
least twice with different agents.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis)

~~~
kylorhall
They've done it in New Zealand before as well, illegally (or something similar
at least). It worked a bit, in one region, then failed. The result was farmers
wound up fighting a massive population growth of rose hip plants which took
over as much as the rabbits did.

At least that's what some old guy told me when I was walking through the South
Island on the TA.

~~~
eesmith
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_rubiginosa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_rubiginosa)
points out that the rose hip plant is an "environmental weed" in NZ, and that
"Growth from seed is aided by the reduction in competing pasture by rabbits."
It links to [http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/colleges/college-
of-...](http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/colleges/college-of-
sciences/clinics-and-services/weeds-database/sweet-brier.cfm) which says:

> Pasture competition prevents new plants from establishing, though
> established plants are very competitive. Rabbit infestations have helped the
> spread of sweet brier by reducing pasture vigour. Cattle, possums and birds
> spread the seed by eating the fruits ("rose hips") produced around the
> seeds.

------
skc
I'm surprised that there is not a big enough market for rabbit meat to take
care of this problem elegantly.

I haven't had rabbit since I was very young but I do remember it being
absolutely delicious.

~~~
eesmith
"Elegantly"? Economics and ecology have never worked together in an elegant
fashion.

We would need orders of magnitude more hunters in order to eradicate rabbits
from NZ. That's expensive. Rabbits simply aren't tasty enough to justify that
effort.

If the market demand for rabbits were to increase drastically, one market
response would be to raise more rabbits on rabbit farms, which is cheaper than
game rabbit.

An increase demand would also result in increased rabbit hunting in Australia.
So long as Australian rabbit meat is cheaper than hunting down the last of the
NZ rabbits, NZ rabbits will remain in the ecosystem, ready to, _ahem_ , bounce
back once the economics changes again.

Nor are people stupid. If rabbit hunting brings in huge amounts of money,
landowners in NZ are not going to eradicate all of their rabbits for the sake
of short-term profits.

------
pankajdoharey
This is a bad news, we dont understand ecology enough to toy with it with
viruses. Killing and Trapping is a much safer choice, we never know what
mutations the virus might acquire and become a larger threat to ecology and
us. This is why capitalism could be bad when a Biosecurity company backs such
attempts. I am surprised who suggests such ideas to the government.

~~~
quixoticelixer-
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, killing and trapping,
will not and do not work. It is all but impossible for the virus to mutate to
infect a desired species.

~~~
farseer
Are you telling us this particular virus cannot mutate? Because spreading it
to a large population of target host species confined on an island would
present plenty of opportunity for mutation.

~~~
eesmith
That would indeed be a silly claim as RHDV1 K5 is itself a strain - a mutation
- of RHDV1. It was found in a rabbit farm in South Korea.

The claim is that it is all but impossible for this strain to mutate to infect
another species. Not that it's impossible for the strain to mutate.

RHDV1 is already endemic in Europe and elsewhere. There are plenty of
opportunities for that virus to mutate.

None of the mutations affect anything other than the European rabbit.

~~~
pankajdoharey
I dont think it is a correct claim, the current form of HIV has mutated from a
similar virus found in Guerillas. The first anti biotic was produced from
cowpox boils. It is the same principle Other species can contract a mutated
version of the virus, spreading it in such a large scale posits a threat
because we dont understand ecology enough.

~~~
eesmith
"All but impossible" means "very nearly impossible", not "impossible."

Certainly there are diseases which can cross the species barrier.

Foot-and-mouth disease, quoting [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-and-
mouth_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-and-mouth_disease) , can
infect "cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs,[4][5] antelope, deer, and
bison. It has also been known to infect hedgehogs and elephants;[3][6] llamas
and alpacas may develop mild symptoms, but are resistant to the disease and do
not pass it on to others of the same species.[3] In laboratory experiments,
mice, rats, and chickens have been successfully infected by artificial means,
but they are not believed to contract the disease under natural conditions.[3]
Humans are very rarely infected."

On the other hand, some diseases are species-specific. Smallpox and polio are
two humans diseases which are not transmitted to other animals, which has
helped us eradicate (or nearly so) those diseases.

RHDV1 K5 appears to be in the latter category, in that it has not been seen to
infect even other species of rabbit, much less more distantly related animals.

~~~
pankajdoharey
Thats a valid point if it has been observed in lab conditions. i still feel
its not entirely safe, but if it has been tested as you say on a smaller group
then probably this risk can be taken.

------
blunte
They say hunting is not adequate to solve this problem, but I would think a
few boat loads of hunters from SEA could not only measurably reduce the
population of rabbits but also provide a lot of food and fur.

I'm not at all advocating killing rabbits for food or fur, but it's at least
more human (and less wasteful) than sickening them and having them suffer 2-4
days before they die.

~~~
Taniwha
I don't think you understand exactly how many rabbits we have, remember they
have no native predators - NZ didn't get land mammals until humans showed up
in ~900AD

~~~
blunte
Well, let's hope the virus does exactly and only what it should. It would be a
shame for it to mutate and wipe out something else accidentally.

~~~
quixoticelixer-
It would probably be a good thing for it to do that.

