Myxomatosis devastates wild rabbit populations and causes prolonged suffering in affected individuals. Understanding the disease and the ethical questions around intervention matters for wildlife welfare.
Myxomatosis causes prolonged and severe suffering in affected rabbits. The disease progresses over days to weeks, causing increasing blindness from swollen eyelids, difficulty breathing from nasal and throat swelling, and secondary bacterial infections. Death is slow and distressing. The disease was deliberately introduced as a pest control measure and continues to cause mass mortality events when naive populations are exposed. For wildlife welfare advocates, myxomatosis raises difficult questions: the disease cannot be prevented in wild populations at scale, and infected rabbits typically cannot be treated. The welfare-positive response for individual animals found in late-stage infection is humane euthanasia. Prevention in domestic rabbits through vaccination is straightforward and should be standard practice.