Believe it or not, whales can acquire rabies.
However, the likelihood of a whale catching rabies is immensely low.
Since whales live in the sea and are not likely to be bitten by a land-dwelling animal, the opportunity for a whale to catch rabies disease is almost non-existent.
With that said, a whale could catch rabies under a myriad of traumatic circumstances, such as being bitten by a marine mammal such as a sea lion, seal, walrus, or polar bear, if this marine animal was affected by the rabies disease.
For this to occur, another land-dwelling animal would first have to infect the marine animal, which would then have to successfully attack the whale to give the whale rabies, which presents another challenge as most marine animals do not live near rabies-infected land animals.
Assuming the marine animal did acquire rabies, it would then have to pierce through the whale’s thick layer of fat and transfer the disease into the whale’s bloodstream.
While a whale could become affected by a land animal, such as a rabies-infected dog or coyote, this is even less likely as these animals aren’t typically found in or around the ocean. In addition, those found living near the sea isn’t expected to travel far enough to attack and bite a whale.
Suppose a whale ever does happen to acquire rabies. In that case, it is also unlikely that the whale will transfer it to other whales as most species are not designed to attack or eat other marine mammals.
In addition, some whales either do not have teeth or lack specialized teeth and jaw muscles designed to tear apart animal flesh, so it would be difficult for a rabies-infected whale to attack and successfully bite another whale.
One cetacean species that could transfer the disease to other marine mammals, such as dolphins and whales, is the killer whale.
This species is known to hunt and attack other marine mammals, including seals, sea lions, walruses, and whales.
Most whales eat a diet consisting of fish, crustaceans, krill, and cephalopods, among other small marine animals, which are far smaller than the marine mammals they interact within the ocean.
While rabies can affect many, it does not generally affect cold-blooded creatures such as fish and sharks, so whales most likely wouldn’t acquire this disease from fish, sharks, or other cold-blooded animals.
With that said, experiments have shown that the virus can be adapted to affect cold-blooded animals if it were modified to do so.
Rabies is a disease that causes severe encephalitis in the host of its warm-blooded victim.
The disease can last for months before reaching the host brain; if it remains untreated before reaching its host brain,t it is almost always fatal.
One factor that makes rabies so deadly is that it can transfer from one animal species to another, usually through a bite, so one mammal species can affect another.