The Wild Rabbit in Australia

You may not know it, but right now, wild rabbits are one of the biggest natural threats to the Australian ecosystem. This article will briefly review the problem of the rabbit in Australia in order to provide a better understanding of the rabbit's general history and current standing in the world.

Rabbits were first brought to Australia in the late 1700's by English colonizers. After several Englishmen began importing rabbits to Australia for hunting purposes, the population began to explode in the late 1850's. The rabbits thrived in Australia's warm climate, and there was ample food available for them thanks to human farming developments. Soon, the rabbit population was so enormous that millions could be hunted, trapped or otherwise killed without the deaths having any noticeable impact on the overall population.

Rabbits have had multiple negative effects on the Australian ecosystem. They are thought to be directly responsible for the decline in the numbers of many of Australia's native animals. When they began to inhabit and populate an area, they out-competed native animals such as the endangered Western Quoll. They are known for ringbarking trees, a process wherein the rabbit eats a strip of bark around the tree's circumference, prohibiting further growth and resulting in the tree's death. The rabbits also eat seedlings off the ground, preventing further growth of many types of trees and bushes. The rabbits are also responsible for the devastating erosion of much of the Australian outback. They remove the topsoil when they dig their burrows and leave the land vulnerable to various types of damaging erosion.

However, there has been at least one advantage to the explosion of rabbits in Australia. During the Great Depression and other economically difficult times, rabbits have provided a readily available food source for people without money or means of obtaining other food.

Various measures have been enacted in Australia to attempt to control the rabbit population. Many people who own land are legally obligated to control the rabbit population on their land. The myxomatosis disease was introduced to the Australian rabbit population in 1950 which reduced the population from 600 million to 100 million. Populations have subsequently developed resistance to the disease and have significantly recovered.

The battle against Australia's wild rabbit continues to this day. Hopefully, a solution can be reached that will save Australia's fragile ecosystem.