wilfred owen biology
Friday 6th September 2013
The Pest problem
European rabbits have been a pest in Australia for 150 years.
Gardeners and growers everywhere, watch your lettuce patches! Australia is being hit by a bunny invasion and these marauders aren't the chocolate kind.
After years of battling this pest, Australia is now facing a fresh increase in rabbit numbers. Rabbits have been spotted in rising numbers in the Atherton tablelands in far north Queensland, and the Northern Rivers region in New South Wales.
The latest battlefront is Macquarie Island, a subantarctic island halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Here, rabbit numbers have swelled from under 20,000 to 130,000 in only six years, and have eaten much of the native bushland.
"You could compare [the island] to a golf course," says Dr Arko Lucieer from the University of Tasmania, co-author of a recent paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology analysing the effect of the growing rabbit population on the island.
Faced with a bunny explosion across the country, scientists are urgently looking for solutions to eradicate this ecological nightmare.
Why are they here?
European rabbits first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, but they only became a pest after 24 wild rabbits were released for hunting near Geelong in Victoria 150 years ago.
"Rabbits were introduced as part of a broad attempt by early colonists to make Australia as much like Europe as they possibly could," says Greg Mutze, research officer at the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation in South Australia.
"It was hoped that they would flourish so that the owners could hunt them."
Flourish they did. Rabbits spread throughout Victoria and by 1880 had crossed into New South Wales. In 1886 rabbits were spotted in South Australia and Queensland, and by 1890 were hopping across eastern Western Australia.
To prevent the rabbits' westward spread, the WA government finished building three rabbit-proof fences
The Pest problem
European rabbits have been a pest in Australia for 150 years.
Gardeners and growers everywhere, watch your lettuce patches! Australia is being hit by a bunny invasion and these marauders aren't the chocolate kind.
After years of battling this pest, Australia is now facing a fresh increase in rabbit numbers. Rabbits have been spotted in rising numbers in the Atherton tablelands in far north Queensland, and the Northern Rivers region in New South Wales.
The latest battlefront is Macquarie Island, a subantarctic island halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Here, rabbit numbers have swelled from under 20,000 to 130,000 in only six years, and have eaten much of the native bushland.
"You could compare [the island] to a golf course," says Dr Arko Lucieer from the University of Tasmania, co-author of a recent paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology analysing the effect of the growing rabbit population on the island.
Faced with a bunny explosion across the country, scientists are urgently looking for solutions to eradicate this ecological nightmare.
Why are they here?
European rabbits first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, but they only became a pest after 24 wild rabbits were released for hunting near Geelong in Victoria 150 years ago.
"Rabbits were introduced as part of a broad attempt by early colonists to make Australia as much like Europe as they possibly could," says Greg Mutze, research officer at the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation in South Australia.
"It was hoped that they would flourish so that the owners could hunt them."
Flourish they did. Rabbits spread throughout Victoria and by 1880 had crossed into New South Wales. In 1886 rabbits were spotted in South Australia and Queensland, and by 1890 were hopping across eastern Western Australia.
To prevent the rabbits' westward spread, the WA government finished building three rabbit-proof fences