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 the 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 with the rabies disease.

In order for this to occur another land dwelling animal would first have to infect the marine animal that would than have to successfully attack the whale in order 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 blubber and transfer the disease into the whale’s blood stream.

While a whale could become affected directly by a land animal such as a rabies infected dog or coyote this is even less likely as these animals aren’t typically found living in or around the ocean and those that are found living near the ocean aren’t likely to travel far enough out to sea to attack and bite a whale.

If a whale ever does happen to acquire rabies 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 and 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 possibly transfer the disease to other marine mammals such as dolphins and/or whales is the killer whale as 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 with in the ocean.

While rabies has the ability to affect a number of marine animals 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 as well 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 hosts brain and if it remains untreated before it reaches the brain of its host it is almost always fatal.

One factor that makes rabies so deadly is the fact that it is able to transfer from one animal species to another, usually through a bite, so it is possible for one species of mammal to affect another.