Why are rabbits a pest in Australia?
Rabbits are a pest in Australia because they breed rapidly, strip vegetation, cause soil erosion and compete with native animals and livestock. Their spread began with 24 wild rabbits released in 1859.
Thomas Austin released the rabbits on his property, Barwon Park, near Geelong in Victoria, so he could hunt them. With few predators and mild winters, they multiplied quickly and spread across the continent faster than any other introduced mammal.
By the early 1900s, hundreds of millions of rabbits covered southern Australia. They eat seedlings, so native shrubs and trees cannot regenerate, and their burrowing damages soil and farmland.
Fighting back
Western Australia built the Rabbit-Proof Fence, completed in 1907, stretching more than 1,800 kilometres. Rabbits still got through.
In 1950 the myxoma virus was released, killing most rabbits at first. Rabbit haemorrhagic disease, or calicivirus, escaped from trials in 1995 and reduced numbers further.
Today, farmers and land managers rip warrens, bait and use biological controls. Rabbits still cost agriculture hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Did You Know?
The Easter Bilby campaign was created to replace the rabbit as an Australian Easter symbol because rabbits are a pest.