In my eyes, there are a few disease considerations when deciding whether to eat a harvested wild rabbit in Australia:
- Rabbit Calicivirus Disease (RCD)
- Myxoma Virus (Myxomatosis)
- Tularemia
- Intestinal worms
- Worms/Parasites under the skin
So let’s break these down individually:
Rabbit Calicivirus Disease (RCD)
RCD was considered a potentially new biological control for wild rabbits in Australia and New Zealand in the early 1990s. RCD was taken into quarantine at the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong for comprehensive testing over three years from June 1991. During fields trials in 1995 it escaped from Wardang Island, South Australia. RCD has since spread throughout most of Australia, mainly by natural spread.
RCD infects many organs including the lungs, gut and liver of the rabbit. The latter causes acute hepatitis that can kill the rabbit within 48 hours by precipitating a rapid and widespread blood clotting mechanism. Whether RCD is effective depends on age. Rabbits less than three weeks old are not affected and only 60% of rabbits between three to six weeks old are affected. Particularly if young animals are infected and survive, they become immunised against infection when they are older. Female rabbits that are infected by the virus and survive will pass antibodies via their milk to their young, giving them protection for up to 12 weeks after birth. The take-away from these facts is that the younger the rabbit, the lower the chances are that the rabbit has contracted RCD.
Whether RCD actually affects humans was considered in great detail by the government and health authorities from the outset. A major study was conducted in which blood from 259 people exposed to RCD-infected rabbits was tested. There was no evidence of infection. International laboratories in many different countries confirm that human infection with rabbit calicivirus is not known to occur and that no ill effects have been seen, even in people working very closely with the virus.
When harvesting a rabbit, one should never eat a sick animal, as it is difficult to identify exactly what it has suffered from. There is also the slim chance that the animal could have recently contracted RCD, and it should be noted that some rabbits die very quickly from the disease and may show very few visible changes to the internal organs. Nevertheless, if an animal recently infected with RCD was killed and eaten prior to there being any signs of sickness, the virus would have no effect on humans.
Still the idea of eating an RCD ridden rabbit does not seem wise, so when it comes to butchering, it is important to closely examine every carcass to minimise the risk of even being exposed to RCD (or any other disease for the matter). When you cut open each carcass the lungs and liver may provide some clues. Livers of RCD rabbits are often pale and mottled. Lungs may look abnormal with large numbers of small red spots or blotches. The spleen is often enlarged and kidneys are often almost black.
Myxoma Virus (aka Myxomatosis)
When harvesting a rabbit, one should never eat a sick animal, as it is difficult to identify exactly what it has suffered from.
With regard specifically to Myxomatosis, put simply, eating rabbit with myxomatosis will not hurt you.
Within two years of the virus’s official mainland release in 1950, Australia’s wool and meat production recovered from the rabbit onslaught to the tune of $68 million. This moment in time was also memorable for a public scare over the simultaneous outbreak of human encephalitis in northern Victoria. To calm public anxiety that myxomatosis might have been the cause of this deadly human brain disease, CSIRO Chairman Ian Clunies Ross and two other notable scientists, Macfarlane Burnet and Frank Fenner, injected themselves with myxoma virus. They were unaffected proving conclusively that the suggestion was without foundation.
As predicted by CSIRO’s Francis Ratcliffe and ANU’s Frank Fenner, the impact of myxomatosis gradually declined over time as both the myxoma virus and the rabbit population changed genetically. These days, in any case, the numbers of wild rabbits actually infected with myxomatosis are likely to be extremely low.
Tularemia
When harvesting a rabbit, one should never eat a sick animal, as it is difficult to identify exactly what it has suffered from.
Tularemia is a real, documented disease. It is a bacteria that mostly infects ticks, but also can infect animals, most commonly rodents and rabbits. Most of the time it is contracted through a tick bite. However, if you clean an infected rabbit and its blood gets into a cut on your hand, you can catch it. Freezing will not kill it. Tularemia can actually live for years in you freezer. Tularemia can be killed by heat, so cooking the meat will make it safe.
Statistically speaking you only have a 1 in 100,000 chance of catching this rare disease, but for peace of mind, the best defense is to wear gloves when cleaning the rabbit and to fully cook it.
Intestinal worms
When harvesting a rabbit, one should never eat a sick animal, as it is difficult to identify exactly what it has suffered from.
Intestinal worms; they do not infect muscle tissue. If you’re intent on eating offal, just cook them well at temperatures above 72°C!
Worms/Parasites under the skin
When harvesting a rabbit, one should never eat a sick animal, as it is difficult to identify exactly what it has suffered from.
With regard to worms and parasite in the flesh and under the skin, it is entirely possible that a rabbit could be infected with worms and/or parasite under their skin. They do not pose a great threat to people for two reasons; first, you generally can see these crawling out of the meat. If there are worms crawling out of my rabbit I’m not eating it. Second, worms are killed by heat. If you cook the rabbit until it is 72°C+ degrees, all the worms (and anything else) will be dead…
James' thoughts on shooting 