What happened to our rabbits?

After a long and severe winter, most animals wintering among us came back in about the same numbers as we were used to see before. 

Deer, moose, magpies, ducks or squirrels resumed their daily spring and summer activities around our Park City home as they used to, or close to it. I’m not talking about migratory birds that transit through town or come just for the summer. Those have returned as expected. 

There was however, on notable absent species and it was the cottontail rabbit that, over recent years, had seen its population skyrocket in our mountain town. This year, I have yet to see a single one. I saw a few tracks on the snow when I was skiing, but it seems to me that the occurrences faded away as the season went on.

That led me to theorize that because of the deep, heavy snow, rabbits, just like many deer had been starving to death, even suffering temporary extinction. I haven’t been able to verify my stark conclusion. 

The only information getting close to that came from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, in an article dated June 23, that said that rabbit population was hit by some hemorrhagic disease, the virus serotype 2 (RHDV-2), a foreign animal disease in the US. 

This is not related to COVID-19. Both domestic and wild rabbits, as well as pikas, are susceptible to the disease, and infection results in 80 to 100% mortality. Rabbits may become sick one to five days after exposure and have symptoms of fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, difficulty breathing and frothy blood coming from their nose just prior to death. 

The virus causes liver inflammation that prevents blood from clotting and eventually the rabbit dies from internal hemorrhage. Sadly, there’s no treatment for it. The disease first identified with domestic rabbits in Europe, has been detected in multiple southwestern states and northern Mexico in early 2020. 

On June 22, 2020, the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food confirmed that a private farm with domestic rabbits in southern Utah had rabbits that tested positive for the disease. Infected wild rabbits may be lethargic and not flee when approached. 

Knowing this, I will have to admit that my initial theory was a product of my overflowing imagination!