Rabbits in Australia
[1] Such wild rabbit populations are a serious mammalian pest and invasive species in Australia causing millions of dollars' worth of damage to crops.
However, by 1827 in Tasmania, a newspaper article noted "...the common rabbit is becoming so numerous throughout the colony, that they are running about on some large estates by thousands.
The first of these, in Sydney at least, was one built by Alexander Macleay at Elizabeth Bay House, "a preserve or rabbit-warren, surrounded by a substantial stone wall, and well stocked with that choice game.
[citation needed] In 1857–1858, Alexander Buchanan, overseer for F. H. Dutton's Anlaby Estate in the Mid-North of South Australia, released a number of rabbits for hunting sport.
[9] The population explosion was ascribed to the disappearance of native predators, but the emergence of a hardier breed by natural selection has subsequently been attributed to their spread.
[citation needed] The current infestation appears to have originated with the release of 24 wild rabbits[10] by Thomas Austin for hunting purposes in October 1859, on his property, Barwon Park, near Winchelsea, Victoria and by 1866, the Geelong Advertiser reported 50,000 having been killed by hunters.
[citation needed] In a classic example of unintended consequences, rabbits had become so prevalent within 10 years of their introduction in 1859 that two million could be shot or trapped annually without having any noticeable effect on the population.
[15] The extent of plant species' loss is unknown at this time, though rabbits are known to often kill young trees in orchards, forests, and on properties by ringbarking them.
Shooting rabbits is one of the most common control methods and can successfully be used to keep already low populations in check while providing food for people or pets, though it is ineffective for large-scale eradication.
The sandy soil in many parts of Australia makes ripping and ploughing a viable method of control, and both tractors and bulldozers are used for this operation.
Poisoning is probably the most widely used of the conventional techniques, as it requires the least effort and is capable of destroying a local population, though reinfestation given the mobility of the animal is almost inevitable.
The advantage of phosphorus is that in dry weather, assuming it has not been laid in clumps (obviated by use of a poison cart), it soon degrades to innocuous phosphoric acid and presents no further danger to livestock or pets.
In the 1880s, James Moseley ringed Coondambo Station with wire netting and fenced off the watercourses; at the first heatwave, the rabbits perished of thirst.
Shortly after 1900, he fenced off the deserted Yardea, Paney, Pondana, Yarloo, and Thurlga stations in the Gawler Ranges with 150 miles (240 km) of wire netting, turning them within a few years from degraded land overrun with rabbits into a profitable sheep run.
[24] Well-known modern examples, which also exclude foxes, dogs, and cats are Warrawong and Yookamurra wildlife sanctuaries, pioneered by John Wamsley.
Given that European rabbits can both jump very high and burrow underground,[27] a perfectly intact fence stretching for hundreds of kilometres, and whose gates farmers or graziers did not leave open for livestock or machinery, was still unlikely to succeed.
An offer by the New South Wales government of a £25,000 reward for a biological control of rabbits attracted the attention of Louis Pasteur, who proposed using the chicken cholera bacillus (now known as Pasteurella multocida).
In September 1887, Dr Herbert Butcher (1854–1893) of Wilcannia found a number of dead, emaciated rabbits at Tintinallogy Station.
Dr Danysz felt that Broughton Island was a poor choice of test site, and that extensive experiments should be conducted on the mainland.
Frank Tidswell, who was his chief Australian collaborator, continued Danysz's trials after he left in 1907, and also began trials of the Yalgogrin, Gundagai, and Picton microbes (named for the stations where infected rabbits were found), but financial support was lacking from the Federal government, or the collaboration of affected states, that would be necessary to prove that the measure safe and effective.
In Europe, where rabbits are farmed on a large scale, they are protected against myxomatosis and calicivirus with a genetically modified virus[38] developed in Spain.
A team headed by virologist Francisco Parra, working with the University of Oviedo, in Asturias, northern Spain, identified a new variant of the virus in 2012.
