Australia’s war against rabbits

The first rabbit to be brought to Australia was in 1788. New European settlers loaded several ships and brought different cattle breeds to Australia to set up farms that year. They brought a handful of rabbits along with the fleet, known as the First Fleet. But those rabbits were domesticated. Even for the next few decades, all the rabbits brought to Australia were domesticated. Also, in 1827 some wild rabbits were released on the island of Tasmania. 

However, they did not cause any harm to the biodiversity of Australia or the colonists living there. The actual incident took place in 1859 when the first European rabbit arrived on the Australian mainland at the hands of a landowner named Thomas Austin.

Within a few years of the release of only 13 rabbits in 1859, the increase in their number became a cause of human headaches because the offspring of those rabbits began to roam the fields like insects. 

In 1865, they hunted 20,000 rabbits in the Thomas Austin estate alone. Despite this, they could not control the number of rabbits. On the contrary, the number is increasing day by day. By 1880, rabbits had spread across the state of Victoria and even entered New South Wales. It reached all over Queensland and South Australia in 1886, and by 1894 it had reached as far as the far east of Western Australia. Proportionately growing rabbits by 1928 spread over one-third of the island’s area of ​​about 77 million square kilometers. The main reasons behind the massive increase in rabbits in Australia are their fertility, favorable environment, an abundance of food, and lack of natural predators.

National problem

In the eighties of the nineteenth century, the number of European wild rabbits in southeastern Australia began to increase so much that it was beyond the reach of ordinary people, even landlords like Thomas Austin. And the rabbits were destroying the crops of the cultivated land like insects. As a result, the then Australian government passed a law in 1883 called the Rabbit Infestation Act to control the number of rabbits. Currently, the presence of rabbits is well known everywhere except in the arid and barren deserts of Australia. However, the current rabbit infestation rate is lower than in the first half of the twentieth century. Because the number of rabbits was more than 60 crores in 1950, now that number is less than 20 crores. But considering the proportional rate, the number of 60 crore rabbits in the middle of the twentieth century is expected to reach one trillion in the 21st century. However, some preventive measures taken by the people have thwarted the possibility of reaching 13 to 1000 crores. If they had not taken those measures, rabbits would have occupied every inch of soil in Australia at present.

Economic loss

The damage to the Australian economy from rabbit infestations is not tiny, despite the advent of several preventive measures in the 21st century. However, the country’s agricultural sector suffered the most as a result of this nuisance. It also affects the livestock production sector. It is because rabbits attack croplands as well as grasslands to meet their food needs. As a result, there is a shortage of food for cattle. However, the excessive presence of rabbits is not only harmful to humans and their economy. On the contrary, Australia’s unique biodiversity has suffered tremendously.

Last word

After the Europeans colonized Australia, they wanted to make the island their home, like Europe. To that end, they started farming and importing various exotic animals. But Australia is not Europe. Australian nature has its speed and rules. But the Europeans, for their convenience, have continued to act arbitrarily without flinching at all. As a result, Australia’s natural environment and biodiversity are on the verge of extinction for thousands of years for thousands of years. But this story of arbitrariness is not just specific to colonial Europeans. Instead, almost every nation on earth is equally guilty. And the results of this have come to us in the twenty-first century. But there is still time to turn around. We have time to ensure the longevity of our accommodation.