Recently, I wondered: in Australia there are millions of rabbits, like uncut dogs, but for some reason I have never heard that rabbit meat is a popular Australian dish. And I have never heard of rabbit meat from Australia. There is a lot of kanguryatin in our stores - it is even sold under the guise of beef, but there is no rabbit meat. What I found out was shocking...

The history of the appearance of rabbits in Australia is well known. The colonialists kept them on ships so that there would always be meat for food. One of the colonialists, Martin Austin, yearning for his homeland, released 24 rabbits into the Australian open spaces. Then a terrible thing happened: the rabbits in Australia had no natural enemies and they began to multiply exponentially. After 70 years, these 24 rabbits have multiplied to ten billion!!! This is an absolute record for the reproduction of mammals on our Earth.

First millions and then billions of rabbits walked across the continent at a speed of 80 miles (130 km) per year. They walked, devastating everything in their path, through New South Wales to the west of Australia.

On the conscience of rabbits - the disappearance of many Australian animals and plants, the devastation of pastures, the destruction of forests. Exposing the ground from vegetation, rabbits have caused erosion of Australian soils. Soil without forest and grass is quickly washed out and weathered, and it takes hundreds of years to restore it.

To stop the hordes of rabbits, many methods were used: they were shot, poisoned, their holes were plowed up with tractors. But all these measures were ineffective.

In 1950, a biological weapon, the myxomatosis virus*, was used against rabbits for the first time. Then 99% of the rabbits died from the disease, and the survivors acquired resistance to the virus.

In 1995, a biological weapon was used again - the calcivirosis virus, which causes hemorrhagic disease. This virus helps keep a herd of wild rabbits within 300 million individuals.

Now a new virus has been released against Australian rabbits - VGBK K5. This is a Korean strain with which the Australians hope to further reduce the number of rabbits on the continent.

So why are there a lot of rabbits in Australia, but there is no rabbit meat for sale? It turns out that only a few thousand rabbits are kept in private households. There are only four farms in all of Australia where they are bred.

The trick is that all imported viruses are carried by blood-sucking insects that do not distinguish wild rabbits from domestic rabbits - they infect everyone. The vaccine for one rabbit costs $10, and if the injection is given by a veterinarian, then $40. It turns out that it is necessary to spend from 10 to 40 thousand dollars a year for a herd of rabbits in the amount of a thousand heads. Expensive pleasure. Therefore, rabbit meat is equated there with expensive meats, which are served only in expensive restaurants.

As for the meat of wild animals, then: firstly, they are all infected and no one wants to eat the meat of sick animals; secondly, rabbits are wild, respectively, their meat is tough, sinewy and does not represent any culinary value.

That's the whole secret: rabbits in Australia are like rats to us. We don't eat rats...

It is impossible to get a rabbit in Australia without registration and official permission, otherwise you can earn a fine of 44 thousand dollars. * Myxomatosis - this disease was first described in 1896-1909. in Brazil. Then it was found that the carrier of the virus was one of the local species of lagomorphs. In the 1950s, myxomatosis was specifically introduced to control wild rabbits, first in Australia and then in France. In France, the process got out of control - and the myxomatosis virus spread throughout Europe, which is why in 1952-1955. devastating epidemics were recorded. In 1954, a myxomatosis pandemic arose in Europe, when the disease spread at a speed of 450 km per year, covering all European countries. Thus, scientists can be considered the culprits of modern diseases of rabbits. The same thing happened with the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus.

Svetlana Berezneva

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The "tides of life" acquire the greatest scope when something new first spreads through an unexplored, but at the same time suitable environment for it. In such cases, the "first tides" take the form of a "tsunami" and are of the most destructive, often literally catastrophic nature. This applies not only to biology, of course, but for simplicity, let's start with it.
A classic example of catastrophic invasions is the reproduction of European rabbits on a new mainland for them - in Australia. This is the fastest spread of a species of mammal known to scientists in history.

Invasion of rabbits in Australia. Rabbits around a pond at a quarantine camp on Vardang Island. 1938

Rabbits were first brought to Australia by ship in 1788. The colonists bred them for slaughter for meat, kept them as pets, probably in cages. During these years, the number of rabbits was very small, judging by the fact that archaeologists did not find their remains in the traces of the meals of the first colonists.
Long-eared conquerors began their victorious march across the fifth continent in 1859. The name of the Australian farmer Thomas Austin is known, who went down in history thanks to his addiction to hunting (and the rather unexpected consequences of this hobby). Back in England, Austin became an avid hunter of rabbits and partridges. Arriving in Australia, he asked his nephew William to send him a dozen gray rabbits, five hares, six dozen partridges and several sparrows in order to create populations of these species in Australia and indulge further in his favorite pastime. And in October 1859, Austin released two dozen animals into his Barwon Park (Barwon Park) near Winchesley, Victoria. He said, "Releasing a small number of rabbits into the wild will do no harm and will help provide meat in addition to hunting." A year later, the offspring of settlers from the Old World could be found in nature a hundred kilometers from the landing site - both to the north and to the west. In the favorable climate of Australia, rabbits began to breed all year round, and one rabbit can produce up to 40 cubs per year. The abundance of food and the absence of natural enemies did their job - there was an explosive growth in the population, and by the end of the 19th century, tens of millions of rabbits lived in Australia.
Rabbits began to devastate pastures, depriving farmers' livestock of cows and sheep of food. In the forests, they ate all the young shoots, and when the old trees died, a wasteland remained in place of the forest. The destruction of vegetation by rabbits made the top layer of soil defenseless, it weathered, ravines formed. This devastated the lands, and it took many hundreds of years to restore them. Through the fault of rabbits, Australia lost many species of the local unique fauna; before 1900, several species of kangaroos died (they did not have enough food) and other native animals.



Australian Blue Mountains. Mark Twain: “One local resident told me that these are not mountains at all, but piles of rabbits. And he explained that the rabbits seem so blue because they are overripe and have been in the air for too long ... The invasion of rabbits really took terrifying proportions in Australasia, and they really would have been enough for one mountain, but a whole chain of mountains is already too much.

Left: Australian stamp showing the rabbit bandicoot, one of the indigenous Australian species affected by the rabbit invasion. The number of these marsupials has declined sharply. Right: photo

Soon the farmers realized the full scale of their losses and losses from the invasion of rabbits and declared war on them. Traditional methods of struggle - shooting and traps - did not bring success. Already in the 20th century, methods of biological warfare were used against rabbits - rabbit fleas and mosquitoes infected with the myxoma virus were brought to the continent. According to some estimates, in the 1950s this led to a reduction in the rabbit population by a factor of six, from 600 to 100 million. the number rose again to 200-300 million. In the 1990s, calcivirus was used against rabbits.
To hold back the advance of the animals, in the state of Western Australia, the famous Australian wire fence was built, impenetrable to rabbits, which has largely survived to this day. (It's officially called "Rabbit Fence #1"). It was built by 400 people from 1901 to 1907. The fence consists of three levels, and its total length is 3256 kilometers. The fence goes 15 cm underground, as rabbits can dig under it, breaking through holes, and also make fairly high jumps over the fence.

How rabbits can use a mesh fence. 1884 caricature

Keepers mounted on camels imported from India and Afghanistan patrolled the fence, shooting down rabbits they encountered, cutting down shrubs and trees on either side of it, and filling in the digs. With the development of technology, the patrolmen moved to SUVs, and the camels that became unnecessary were released. Soon, the feral camels bred and began to destroy pastures, eating and trampling them, and also to demolish barriers, pulling them out of the ground along with poles. There are now over a million camels in Australia. Every decade their number on the continent almost doubles...

Camels in Australia

Camels run away when they hear the approach of a helicopter (from which they were shot)

Also, in order to combat rabbits, their natural enemies - foxes, ferrets, cats, ermines, martens, weasels - were brought to Australia. But these predators soon switched to easier prey - local species of marsupials, which are not as agile as rabbits, and began to actively exterminate them. In conclusion, however, it can be noted that over a century and a half, rabbits have their natural enemies in Australia - these include, in particular, the Australian dingo dog and one of the local birds of prey.

P.S. Of course, the same story repeated itself in New Zealand. Mark Twain in his book "On the Equator" in his inimitable style described it like this:
“The rabbit scourge that befell New Zealand began with Bluff. The man who brought the first rabbit became famous, banquets were held in his honor; now they would hang him if they got to him. In England, the original enemies of the rabbit are hated and persecuted; in the Bluff area they are revered and their person is inviolable. In England, the original enemy of the rabbit is the poacher; its original enemies in Bluff are the stoat, weasel, ferret, cat, and mongoose. In England, any person, with the exception of the heir to the throne, who is caught with a rabbit, is obliged to give a convincing explanation of how he got to him, or he pays a fine, goes to prison and at the same time loses his peerage; in Bluff, a cat walking with a rabbit in its mouth is not obliged to give explanations to anyone - no one looks at it; a person who sees a cat with a rabbit pays a fine, goes to jail and loses his peerage. This is where cat morals are undermined. In thirty years there will not be a single moral cat left in New Zealand. However, others believe that they are not there now. In England, the poacher is hunted down, pursued, poisoned - he does not dare to show himself; in Bluff - a cat, a stoat, a weasel, a ferret and a mongoose roam wherever they please, and no one touches them. The authorities posted in a conspicuous place a law stating that any person who is found with even one of these animals (dead) must give a convincing explanation of the cause of his death or pay a fine - not less than five and not more than twenty pounds. But this source of government revenue is not very large. There are fewer and fewer people who would be willing to pay a hundred dollars for a dead cat. It's a pity, because this item of income was intended for the university fund.

(To be continued).

The story of the Australian rabbits showed the whole world what can happen if you accidentally break an isolated ecosystem that has developed for thousands of years.

Rabbits appeared in Australia in the middle of the 19th century. They were brought from Europe with the prospect of farming for tasty and inexpensive meat. Rabbits breed exponentially: one rabbit gives an annual offspring of up to 25 cubs, which, in another year, increase the family to 350 individuals.

It so happened that one of the farmers did not keep track of their wards, some of the rabbits escaped from the cages, or maybe they were released on purpose due to a lack of maintenance. It turned out that rabbits in Australia in the wild have very few natural enemies and after a while they bred incredibly.

The spread of rabbits across the Australian continent is rightly called an invasion. Having become wild, rabbits increased their habitat up to 100 kilometers per year. To limit their spread, farmers built wire fences that stretched across Australia, and the total length of which was 3,500 kilometers.

The hedges did not help, the animals simply dig under them, and by the beginning of the 20th century there were about 20 million rabbits in Australia, and after another 50 years their number had grown to 750 million.

Such a number of eaters of plant foods was a serious competition to the famous Australian marsupials and rodents, but, most importantly, the dominance of rabbits began to directly threaten and threaten sheep breeding, which is widespread in Australia to this day.

The fight against rabbits in Australia has been going on for the past century. At first they decided to destroy them with the help of natural enemies brought from Europe, such as the fox, weasel and marten, but they preferred to hunt marsupials. Numerous attempts to destroy rabbits with chemicals did not help either.

People achieved the greatest effect when they infected rabbits in Australia with a deadly infectious disease with the help of specially bred mosquitoes. Then about 90% of the animals died, but the surviving rabbits acquired immunity and continued to breed.

Today, people are trying to “mess” the bonds established between herds of rabbits with the help of a special substance that imitates the smell of secretions with which rabbit leaders mark their territories. One way or another, the fight against rabbits in Australia continues, and they, nevertheless, annually eat the amount of grass that would be enough to fatten 25 million sheep.

Rabbits in Australia are a real problem for farmers and it is not surprising that people are eager to somehow resist it. But if “everything is left as it is”, then, most likely, nature itself will restore the balance in the ecosystem: today, rabbits in Australia already have quite serious natural enemies - this is the Australian dingo dog and one of the local species of eagles.

True, he did not take into account that rabbits are extremely prolific, and they spread very quickly throughout the southern part of the district. Australia proved to be ideal conditions for the explosive growth of the rabbit population. The vast plains, overgrown with low vegetation, proved to be an ideal habitat for them, and mild winters made it possible to produce offspring all year round.

The spread of rabbits in Australia has become a classic example of unexpected consequences. Within 10 years after the release of the rabbits, they bred so much that the annual extermination (by shooting, poisons or traps) of two million rabbits had no noticeable effect on the rabbit population. The attempt to bring natural enemies of rabbits (such as, for example, foxes) to Australia could not correct the situation, since instead of rabbits they began to destroy representatives of the local fauna. The spread of rabbits was the fastest spread of a mammalian species in known history. Today, rabbits are fenced in the southern and central regions of the country, and scattered populations also live in the northern deserts.

Although rabbits are pests, they nevertheless proved useful during the economic depressions of the 1890s and 1930s and during wars. Harvesting rabbits by farmers and pastoralists provided them with food and additional income, and in some cases helped farmers pay off their debts. Rabbits were eaten by service dogs, and boiled - and as homemade food. Later, frozen rabbit carcasses were sold locally and for export. Rabbit skins are also traded and are still used in the manufacture of hats and clothing.

Impact on Australia's ecology

After being released into the wild in Australia in the 19th century, they had a devastating effect on the nature of Australia. It is assumed that rabbits were the main cause of the extinction of many species of Australian animals, the extent of extinction at that time remains unknown. Rabbits often destroy young trees in orchards, forests and estates by nibbling the bark on them.

The spread of rabbits has led to an increase erosion: they eat seedlings, leaving the top layer of soil defenseless and vulnerable to planar erosion, formation ravines and weathering. The disappearance of the topsoil devastates the lands, and it takes many hundreds of years to restore them.

Population control

By 1887, damage from the spread of rabbits forced the government of New South Wales to offer a substantial premium for "any successful method of effective extermination of rabbits hitherto unknown in the colony". This proposal attracted attention Louis Pasteur, who came up with the idea of ​​using fowl-disease bacilli (now known as Pasteurella multocida) and, although the value of this measure was not proven in practice, it accelerated the development of microbiology in Australia.

In 1901, a royal commission conducted an inquiry into the situation. Since the problem was recognized, various methods have been used to reduce the rabbit population in Australia. These methods had limited success until the introduction of biological control methods in the second half of the 20th century.

Traditional control methods

Shooting rabbits is one of the most common methods of population control and can be successfully used to keep the population under control while providing food for humans and domestic animals, although full-scale extermination requires different methods.

Destruction of rabbit cages by loosening the earth (during this procedure, rabbits die or are buried alive after bulldozer harrows destroy their holes), plowing of land, explosions, disinfection are used on a large scale, especially on large farms (called "stations"). Loosening and plowing are effective practices in many parts of Australia due to the sandy soil, using tractors and bulldozers.

Perhaps the most widely used method is poisoning, as it requires the least amount of effort. The disadvantage of this method is that after this, the rabbits cannot be eaten by both people and pets. For poisoning, sodium fluoroacetate ("1080") and pindone are most commonly used.

Another method is hunting with domestic ferrets, driving rabbits out of the minks under the shots or in the net. However, ferrets can only kill a limited number of rabbits, so this method is more of a hunt than a serious method of limiting control.

Traps have historically been used intermittently. Since 1980 most states have banned traps steel-jawed traps that hold victims by the paws as a result of the fight against animal cruelty, although rubber-jawed traps continue to be used. These methods are only used in populated areas and are labor intensive.

Fence

In 1907, in an attempt to limit the population of rabbits in western Australia between Cape Keraudren and Esperance a fence was erected to keep rabbits out. European rabbits can make quite high jumps and dig holes under the fence. Even if hundreds of miles of fence are maintained in good repair, and farmers and ranchers are prevented from leaving gates open to drive cattle or traffic, it is unlikely that the fence has proven successful.

biological measures

The spread of rabbit pathogens in Australia has proved to be an effective measure to control their population. In 1950, after a study by Frank Fenner, a virus introduced from South America was distributed in the rabbit population. myxomas, which led to a reduction in the rabbit population from 600 to 100 million. However, the few surviving rabbits developed a genetic resistance to the virus, due to which by 1991 the population had recovered to 200-300 million.

Myxovirus, originally endemic to the wild Brazilian rabbit species, has been observed to cause a lethal epizootic on several occasions in European domestic rabbits - which are of a different species. Therefore, in 1950, the virus was purposefully transferred to Australia in the hope of getting rid of the short-sightedly brought here in the 19th century. European rabbits, which have become a real scourge of local agriculture. In the first year, myxomatosis produced an excellent (for Australian farmers) rate of 99.8% deaths among infected individuals. Unfortunately for the farmers, the mortality rate fell to 90% the following year, and eventually stabilized at 25%, ending the Australian plan to eradicate the rabbit attack. The problem was that the myxovirus had evolved and had a self-interest that was different not only from rabbits, but also from ours. As a result of its modification, rabbits became less likely to become infected, and infected ones did not die longer. Thus, the evolved myxovirus learned to transmit its offspring to more rabbits than its overactive predecessor could.

To fight this trend State Association of Scientific and Applied Research Since June 1991, the calcivirus that causes rabbit hemorrhagic disease has been comprehensively tested for three years. The virus entered the quarantine zone on Wardang Island off the coast of South Australia, where field trials were underway to determine the potential to control wild rabbits, and by the end of October 1995, its appearance in rabbits at Younta and Gum Creek in northeastern Australia was noted. . By the winter of 1996, the virus had spread through Victoria, New South Wales, the Northern Territories and Western Australia. The virus was only more successful in heatwaves, as another calcivirus appeared in the cooler, wetter parts of Australia and helped immunize rabbits against the more virulent form.

There is a vaccine against Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease in Australia. Myxomatosis and haemorrhagic disease of rabbits are incurable, and many infected domestic animals have been euthanized. In Europe, rabbits are raised on a large scale, and there they have been protected from the calcivirus by a genetically modified form of it. The vaccine was developed in Spain.

see also

Notes

1. Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser May 22, 1827
2. Cunningham P. Two years in New South Wales, vol. 1, p. 304
3. Sydney Gazette May 28, 1831
4. The Rabbit problem in Austalia (indefinite) . Retrieved January 27, 2013. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013.
5. The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia (indefinite) . Retrieved May 30, 2008. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013.
6. Australian Encyclopaedia, Vol, VII, Grolier Society, Sydney
7. advertising. - Extermination of rabbits. (September 7, 1887), p. 11. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
8. A microbial history of Australia (neopr.) // Livestock Horizons / Puls, Margaret. -St. Lucia, Queensland Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Livestock Industries, 2006. - April (vol. 2, no. 2). -