The Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry, through the Regional Directorate for Forest Resources, informs that as of Friday, December 29, it is forbidden to hunt on São Miguel Island due to a new outbreak of the new variant of the Viral Haemorrhagic Disease (VHD) that is affecting the rabbit population.

As of Friday, it is also forbidden to release hunting dogs on any type of terrain where game wildlife may be found.

The decision to ban hunting and the release of hunting dogs intends to "minimise the spread of the disease until the end of the outbreak is determined and its effects on the local wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus L.) are duly evaluated."

The virus is transmitted by direct contact between diseased rabbits, contact with organic material from diseased rabbits or by live vectors and contaminated objects. In this context, hunters and hunting dogs may become a means of spreading the disease.

The Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry also informs that the safeguarding of agricultural crops, in specific and situations and areas, will always be possible with measures to reduce the population density of wild rabbits.

In the end of November, a new collection of wild rabbit samples was carried out on the São Miguel Island to continue the study on the evolution of the Viral Haemorrhagic Disease (DHV2) in the Azores. The Regional Directorate for Forest Resources implemented the study with the collaboration of the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources of the University of Porto (CIBIO-UP); it has been conducted since 2015.

Identified in France in 2010, the new variant of Viral Haemorrhagic Disease virus, which triggered an outbreak in Mainland Portugal in 2012/13 with a high mortality rate, reached the Azores in November 2014, with Graciosa being the first island to be affected.