Most trap collectors from overseas may or may not have heard of the Rabbit plagues in Australia and New Zealand since the 1860’s.  Rabbits were imported into Australia for recreational sport for people from England who settled into Australia in the mid 1800’s. The rabbits they imported were the same grey rabbits found in England. These rabbits actually originated around the Iberian point some where south of France and north of Spain and were introduced into England during the Roman or Norman invasions, so they tell me.

Well these rabbits escaped/released from that person’s property who imported them originally, this was the genesis of the awesome spread of feral rabbits in this country. These rabbits found the Aussie climate perfect for breeding up, and boy did they breed up. Around the 1880’s Australia found out it had a massive problem because when the rabbits plagued; the following devastation occurred …

·        Rabbits began competing with the sheep for grass

·        Rabbits spread throughout western Victoria, southern NSW and eastern South Australia at an alarming speed

·        Rabbits ate all available grass, thus depriving sheep and other farm animals from their source of food, naturally the Kangaroos did not like this pesky pest also

·        Rabbits laid bare 2,000,000 acres of the Mallee scrub area in western Victoria, they ate the saplings thus depriving the Mallee trees to grow

·        Rabbit numbers were into the 100’s of millions eating all available grass and creating dust bowls every where.

·        Rabbits were replacing Bilbys around the Murray region causing this timid native animal to retreat away from the rabbits, the rabbits also “took over” their burrows

The list of devastation caused by the rabbits just grew and grew, farmers were walking off their devastated properties; the economic loss all over the farming community was a disaster

The following photographic evidence below will assist foreigners in  understanding  just how many rabbits were around in those days. Following are some extreme examples, all the rabbits in the succeeding pictures were the ones that were shot or trapped by rabbiters. With some imagination you might be able to conjure up the volume of rabbits that

This picture was taken in 1905 at Woodstock railway station – here are 173 crates of rabbits which are waiting to be loaded onto a train for the freezer works in Cowra NSW. (Some 6000 rabbits from one days trapping and shooting)

This is how individual trappers got their rabbits to the next pick up point (freezer trucks) or direct to the freezer works in town. Count the rabbits. This is by horse and cart.

Another mode of conveyance was to fill your Ute up with rabbits and take them to the freezer works in town.

Here we have a truck load of fresh rabbits off to the freezer works. Count the bunnies.

I think the reader would be getting the idea of the enormous amount of rabbits that were “eating up” our country. The above pictures were taken from different eras, circa 1905 till mid 1930’s.  The rabbits ended up in various “freezer works” somewhere in eastern Australia; they were processed for either meat; for example tinned rabbit for export, the furs were used for hat making and fur coats and so on. Other rabbits were boiled on the farm for pig food and chicken food, plus other uses around a farm. Waste not, want not.

Here are some rabbits drinking from a water hole in the mid 1930’s, you might note how bare the paddock is all the grass has been eaten. 

OTHER MEASURES TO GET RID OF THE RABBITS

Besides trapping, shooting and road kills, extensive efforts were made of the years to find different ways of reducing the rabbit numbers…such as …

• Physically digging them out of the burrows

• Using dynamite to blow up rabbit warrens

• Using bulldozers and horses to rip up rabbit warrens

• Using poisonous gases to fumigate rabbit warrens

• Poisons such as 1080

• Myxo

• Calicie virus

Guess what? The bloody rabbits are still here.