VIRUS-VECTORED IMMUNOCONTRACEPTION FOR CONTROL OF WILD RABBITS - IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET ANTIGENS AND CONSTRUCTION OF RECOMBINANT VIRUSES

The need to control animal populations arises in many situations in th e world from a variety of motives. Present control strategies are almo st universally based on lethal procedures. Increasingly, there is diss atisfaction with such approaches from many different perspectives. In response to these concerns, the concept of controlling populations of pest species through control of their fertility has been mooted. Succe ssful examples of this approach exist in cases of small, discrete pest populations but application of this to a widely distributed species o ver a broad geographical area has not yet been achieved. In this artic le, we report on a new approach to fertility control, virus-vectored i mmunocontraception, and discuss its applicability to control of wild r abbit populations. Particular emphasis is placed on the strategy for s election of a target molecule capable of inducing an immunocontracepti ve response and on how the gene encoding such a molecule might be engi neered into the myxoma virus for distribution into the population. The fact that the procedures for antigen identification and the viral eng ineering methods used are, to varying extents, generic means that the broad principles of this approach are applicable in other species.