SVA (Statens veterinärmedicinska anstalt) has autopsied three wild rabbits, two adult females and a juvenile female, after several rabbits with similar symptoms have been found and killed in Skälby-Oxhagen, Kalmar.
The rabbits were sent in because the municipality suspected an outbreak of rabbit plague, a contagious and deadly disease that can also affect domestic rabbits (but not humans).
4H-gården in Skälby has closed its rabbit park so that the infection does not affect them, which SVT has reported before.
- It is rare for the rabbit plague to cause them to die.
It is often the case that they starve to death or become prey for predators or are hit, because they become blind, says Elina Thorsson, veterinarian and game pathologist at SVA.
According to the autopsy protocol, all three submitted rabbits showed a similar disease picture: they were emaciated, the skin over the nose, eyelids and ear base was swollen, hairless and sore.
A microscopic examination also showed changes typical of the rabbit plague.
Thirty killed
According to SVA, it has thus been confirmed that they have been affected by rabbit plague - something Kalmar municipality was told about today according to municipal ecologist Tomas Burén.
What does this mean for you in practice?
- Not really that much.
No matter what disease, we must kill sick animals that we find, so that they do not suffer.
"Picks dead every day"
In recent weeks, about thirty wild rabbits have been killed in Kalmar.
4H-gården has managed to avoid getting the infection into its own herd.
- But the infection is very obvious, we pick dead rabbits here outside every day, says Tina Burvall, farm manager 4H Skälby Kalmar.
Elina Thorsson at SVA urges the public to report if they see rabbits with suspected rabbit plague.
- If you see a rabbit that is swollen around the eyes, is apathetic and does not seem to react to its surroundings.
It is very valuable if we get those reports.