The "rabbit problem" in Australia is a classic example of rash human intervention in a unique ecosystem and its grandiose consequences. The common European rabbit has become a real scourge of the whole continent.
It is believed that this story began in 1859, when Australian farmer Thomas Austin released several rabbits into his park. This happened in the state of Victoria, Geelong area. Prior to this, rabbits were introduced to Australia by the first colonists as a source of meat and were usually kept in cages. Thomas Austin was an avid hunter and decided that rabbits would not bring much damage, they would become an excellent source of meat and could be happily hunted in the wild.
According to other sources, releases or escapes of rabbits into the wild were noted repeatedly in the middle of the 19th century in the south and north of the continent, so one should not blame Thomas Austin for the distribution of rabbits.
The idea was good. Rabbits reproduce very quickly, have tasty dietary meat and rather valuable skins (rabbit fluff), which was important for the first settlers. Before that, rabbits were successfully introduced to the United States and South America, where no problems arose with them - they joined the ecosystems and their numbers were controlled by the natural predators of these places. But Australia is a special continent, so things went wrong.
The problems began within a few years. The number of rabbits increased greatly and they began to be seen already 100 km from the place of initial release. No one took into account the fact that rabbits reproduce exponentially: one rabbit can produce 20-40 rabbits per year, and after a year the total family increases to 350 individuals. Since there are no cold winters in Australia, rabbits began to breed almost all year round. The good climate, abundance of food and the absence of natural predators were excellent conditions for the explosive growth of the population. By the beginning of the 20th century, the number of rabbits was approximately 20 million, and by the middle of the century - already 50 million. There were 75-80 rabbits per inhabitant of Australia.
They began to fight with rabbits as with enemies of sheep. The animals ate all the pastures, and the sheep did not have enough food. The following figures are given: 10 rabbits eat as much grass as 1 sheep, but a sheep gives 3 times more meat.
It seems that local residents did not care much about the problems of preserving flora and fauna, and after all, rabbits did damage not only to sheep and farmers. Where the rabbits lived, until 1900, several species of kangaroos died (they did not have enough food), other small marsupial animals were seriously affected, as well as some species of aboriginal fauna - the rabbits ate plants by the roots and gnawed at young trees, destroying them completely.
As a result, the common European rabbit has become a typical representative of an invasive animal species - this is how living organisms are called, which, as a result of their introduction into new ecosystems, begin to actively capture them and displace the indigenous inhabitants.
The very fight with rabbits has brought a lot of troubles for the Australian flora and fauna. Initially, they decided to bring in the natural enemies of rabbits - foxes, ferrets, cats, ermines, weasels. But the attempt was unsuccessful. The imported species also became invasive, switching to native marsupials and birds that were not as fast as rabbits and could not resist new predators.
Then they turned to traditional methods - pesticides, shooting, blasting holes. This was ineffective given the sheer number of animals. In the state of Western Australia in the period from 1901 to 1907. built a huge wire fence. It is called “Fence from rabbits №1”. The fence is constantly patrolled by cars, rabbit tunnels are filled up, rabbits are shot back.
At first, the fence was patrolled on camels. After the appearance of cars, camels were released as unnecessary, they bred, began to destroy pastures, and a new problem appeared in Australia.
In the mid 50s. In the 20th century, medical advances were used to combat rabbits. Rabbit fleas and mosquitoes infected with myxomatosis virus were brought to Australia. This disease causes tumors and death in rabbits. Thus, about 90% of the diseased animals were destroyed. But the remaining rabbits developed immunity, over time they became less likely to get sick and even less often to die. So at the moment, the problem of rabbits in Australia has not yet been resolved.
