European rabbit populations have collapsed across their native range from disease and habitat loss, with profound effects on the predators and scavengers that depend on rabbits as a primary food source.
Wild rabbits face acute welfare threats from both diseases they are exposed to. Myxomatosis causes severe symptoms including blindness, facial swelling, and respiratory failure over 10-14 days — a prolonged, painful death for affected individuals. RHDV2 causes rapid internal hemorrhaging that kills rabbits within 24-48 hours. The mass mortality events caused by these diseases represent welfare events of enormous scale affecting millions of individual animals. The indirect welfare consequences — starvation of predators unable to find alternative prey — extend the suffering to eagles, lynx, and foxes whose prey base has collapsed.