When the now famous rabbit killer, myxomatosis, made its sensational debut a few year ago many people thought it would spell death to rabbit-trap manufacturers. And for a time it looked, as is it would.

The one and only rabbit trap make in Australia, a New South Wales firm found itself hard hit by its poisonous rival. Formerly it used to turn out a new trap every nine seconds, but its rate of production was much slowed down by lack of demand. But today (1956), the outlook for this firm seems brighter. Myxomatosis it appears may not be all it has been cracked up to be.

The Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Graham, last month said that rabbits were increasing rapidly in New South Wales despite myxomatosis. Recent tests by the CSIRO have shown that rabbits are building up resistance to the killer at such a rate that it may lose its power in five or ten years. Myxomatosis, too, had almost ruined the rabbit skin exporting industries. Rabbit skins had become so scarce in countries that imported from Australia that hat manufacturers were getting desperate. Unable to use furs off animals killed by myxo, the hat kings found business very dismal. Prices of skins shot up within a year by 260 per cent, or more.

From their back seat in the stalls the New South Wales rabbit Trap Company watched this little drama with undisguised glee. So much so that today they are producing nearly half a million traps a year – not as many as in the pre-myxo days, perhaps, but a tidy quantity. A process worker in the firm, Bob Davidson, highlights another angle in the myxo-versus-trap controversy. Davidson has been sent out into the bush many times to test the firm’s traps in action. He said yesterday: “A lot of graziers are dead against Myxomatosis. “ They reckon it’s sheer cruelty to the rabbits, and go out shooting them to put them out of their misery. “ Myxo may take three or four days to kill a rabbit. “ Trapping is a much more humane way of killing the rabbits. The traps usually catch the rabbits by the legs and don’t kill them. “ A blow on the head kills them painlessly”.

Editors note.  The trap company was obviously LANES, and as history proved within ten years of this article, rabbits did in fact but up a total resistance to the myxo, however the number of rabbits never plagued like they did in the previous 100 years or so. A picture of Bob Davidson was with the news article, however it was of poor quality and would not re – produce satisfactorily. Lanes ceased trap making in the early sixties I believe.