In 1831, Thomas Austin, a man from England, crossed the ocean to the Australian town of Hobart and began to settle in Victoria.
At this time, Australia had abundant products and large areas of land that had not yet been reclaimed. All of this means that Thomas will get more opportunities here.
However, large tracts of uncultivated virgin land also became the boring place of Thomas's life.
Thomas wanted to hunt, but didn't have the right prey.
When he was in Europe, he often went out hunting with his family and friends, and the huge number of hares in the hunting ground was his best hunting object.
However, in Australia's large number of species, there are no hares. So Thomas wrote to his nephew and asked him to help bring some rabbits to Australia.
Soon, his nephew William Austin sent him 12 gray rabbits, 5 hares, 72 partridges and some sparrows.
Thomas kept the animals in Bawan Park, and he happily lived the same hunting life as his hometown.
However, Thomas never imagined that these rabbits he had raised would bring great calamity to Australia, and this calamity lasted for more than a hundred years.
Brave rabbit, not afraid of shotguns
In 1859, Thomas received the animals sent by his nephew. He kept the animals in Pavang Park in Victoria.
After putting the hare in, Thomas began inviting the immigrant English gentlemen to hunt with him. Hunting was a great pleasure among the upper classes, and the invited gentlemen were happy, and they often met in Pavang Park, carrying hunting dogs and hunting rifles, chasing the rabbits with Thomas.
Among them, the Duke of Edinburgh, who was invited to hunt in Pavang Park, shined in the hunting activities.
He shot 416 rabbits in four hours, becoming the leader of the day.
At that time, during the "gold rush" in Australia, a group of newly wealthy gentlemen gathered in Victoria, who studied the way of life of the British upper class, and hunting was the most aristocratic activity among them.
In order to make their social status equal to their wealth status as soon as possible, the emerging rich get together to hunt rabbits. The rabbit hunting limelight they brought with them soon became popular in Australia. The demand for rabbits has also skyrocketed, and many farmers have also begun to raise rabbits.
Thomas Austin saw this and released some rabbits from Pavang Park to live elsewhere. These rabbits, either wild or domestic, have gained a good life.
While the gentlemen were delighted by the abundance of prey, the rabbits began to multiply at an unexpected rate.
Unlike other species, rabbits take only six months to sexually mature, they have no obvious estrus period, and can breed all year round, while a female rabbit can produce 4 to 6 rabbits a year, and each litter will have 5 to 8 small rabbits. After six months, these rabbits can produce new rabbits...
Since Australia had no natural enemies of rabbits, their numbers multiplied, and soon, to the point where humans could not control them.
In just three years, more than 30,000 rabbits have appeared in Bawang Park, which originally did not have a single rabbit.
They nibble on grassland, crowd out the habitat of sheep, and make the ruling government, which relies on animal husbandry, feel threatened.
The government listed rabbits as harmful in 1862 and hoped that the public would join the hunt for rabbits.
Thomas cooperated with the government's action and organized hunters to shoot more than 20,000 rabbits in Bawan Park, however, this number of shots did not stop the wanton growth of the rabbit herd, and the remaining 10,000 rabbits, while he hunted, were still breeding.
In order to avoid pursuit, the rabbits began a great escape.
They began to escape Victoria Island, invading the Australian hinterland at a speed of one hundred kilometers a year. Everywhere they pass, there is no grass. They wantonly rob other herbivores of food and destroy Australia's ecology.
Against the backdrop of a rabbit infestation, Australian livestock reproduction is declining at an alarming rate and land desertification is severe.
This has seriously damaged the local ecological balance and affected the local economic development. The government began legislation to control the number of rabbits. Some of the hunters were gathered by them and began to shoot the rabbits in an organized manner.
In addition to shotguns, Australians poisoned rabbit food and set traps.
Thanks to the efforts of hunters, more than two million rabbits disappear every year. This may sound good, but for the crazy growth of rabbits, it is still a dime a dozen.
These well-behaved, cute and docile rabbits, ignoring the shotguns raised by humans, continue to erect their long ears, exposing their sharp front teeth, and nibbling on the plants of the Australian soil.
Thomas never imagined that these rabbits, which had been sent to be prey, would eventually become the true kings of Australian land.
In order to protect australia's ecological environment, the government offers huge bonuses to reward those who can come up with effective solutions.
As soon as the news came out, a snowflake-like letter of advice poured into the government building.
Officials met to choose some of these effective ways to implement them. At the same time, the government is also hiring experts to discuss ways to deal with rabbit infestations.
Australia's Man-Rabbit Wars began to escalate from the traditional hunting phase to a compound battle.
Brave rabbit, not afraid of predators and viruses
The human-rabbit war, which began in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, continues to this day. Australians have thought of many ways to deal with rabbits.
The first thing that comes to mind is the introduction of predators.
People have traced back to the causes of the rabbit plague. Rabbits were brought from the European continent, but they did not become a scourge there. Mainly because there are natural enemies of rabbits there, they have no way to breed indiscriminately.
So, if you introduce rabbits as a natural enemy in Australia, you may solve the problem here.
So the European red fox became the vanguard of this human-rabbit war.
Although the red fox is not native to Australia, it has been brought to some private estates in Australia as hunters as early as 1833.
Private estate owners raised red foxes only on their own estates, and after the rabbit infestation, they began to cooperate with the government to release the foxes outward.
Beginning in 1871, European red foxes were released from private estates and began to run in other Australian lands.
With the help of humans, the growth of foxes should not be underestimated. By 1907, fox trails had traveled through much of southern Australia.
The rapid growth of foxes has relieved Australians, who were worried that european red foxes will not be able to adapt to the new living environment, but now seem to be superfluous. They waited longingly, waiting for the news of the victory of these "fox pioneers".
The foxes did not disappoint, they did eat a large number of rabbits, but the foxes who came to their new homes were obviously in love with other foods.
Precious animals such as the eye-spotted pheasant, the pointed-tailed kangaroo, and the night parrot have become the food of the red foxes. These animals are obviously more delicious than the hard-to-catch rabbits. They fell in love with other flavors and gave up preying on rabbits.
Dragon slayers eventually became evil dragons, and foxes soon became the second species killers after rabbits.
Australians had to start shooting foxes to protect these endangered species.
In addition to foxes, cats are also used to control rabbit populations.
As early as the end of the eighteenth century, the first colonists had brought cats to Australia. They can prey on a large number of small mammals each year. But in the face of a huge number of rabbits, cats, which were not natural enemies, were quickly defeated.
The method of introducing predators thus ended in failure.
Humans with intelligence and technology decided to fight rabbits with bacteria.
In 1898, bacteriologist G. Saint-Arrelli extracted an infectious myxomavirus from rabbits, which only parasitizes rabbits, does not transmit to other species, and is extremely lethal to rabbits.
The Australian government learned of the news and decided to transplant the myxomavirus into rabbits.
Meanwhile, in South Wales, where rabbits are severely infested, a "great wall" of rabbit defense has been built.
The government plans to start with Hunger Harbor on the southern coast and build a long fence that extends all the way to Cape Keladelen in the west to prevent rabbit invasion.
The construction of the fence continued until 1907, when it was already 1834 km in size. Although it can't kill rabbits, it does control their invasion to some extent.
With the fence to stop it, the myxoma virus also played a significant role, and it became a veritable rabbit killer.
By 1951, Australia's rabbit population was limited to 100 million. Just when people thought that they could finally celebrate the victory of the human rabbit war, they found that the number of rabbits bottomed out and began a new round of explosive reproduction.
It turns out that in the course of a long battle with the myxoma virus, rabbits have already evolved antibodies and are no longer afraid of it. After this fight against the virus, the rabbits have a stronger physique.
They tore at the extra-long fence built by the Australian government, punched holes under it, and crossed the artificial barrier in a provocative manner. Continue to be a blessing in this part of Australia.
When will the Man-Rabbit War end?
Since the 1850s and 1860s, Australians have been battling rabbits for more than a hundred years. During this period, humanity never achieved the final victory.
Later, when the news of the Australian rabbit disease reached the ears of Chinese, netizens said that rabbits could be made into food. Let humans be their natural enemies.
This method is not empty, but the huge consumption of rabbit meat in Sichuan, China. Rabbits are cooked by Chinese people and become a variety of delicacies. Netizens believe that if you cultivate the rabbit eating habits of Australians, you may be able to solve the rabbit disease.
However, Australian hares are numerous and difficult to catch, and rabbit meat is not in line with Australian eating habits. Humans have never been able to become the natural enemies of these rabbits.
Since they cannot be completely solved, can rabbits live in harmony with humans? In fact, during the Great Depression, Australians had a period of "honeymoon" with rabbits.
Affected by the poor economic situation, Australians, who have always been mainly beef and mutton, began to eat rabbit meat. The fur of the rabbit was also peeled off to make leather goods such as fur hats and gloves, which became an important means and tool for the people at the bottom to make a living.
But this "honeymoon period" did not last long, and when the economy recovered, Australians had more meat and skin options, and rabbits no longer had use value.
To solve the rabbit plague, the Australians even used bombers at one point.
But this extreme approach is also not sustainable, and once the bomber lowers the missile, it may accidentally injure other rare species.
These are things that the Australian government does not want to see.
In order to curb the number of rabbits as much as possible, Australia has issued a decree prohibiting private breeding of rabbits, and fines have been imposed for violators.
Pet rabbits, which are popular in other regions, are "contraband" in Australia.
Australians are still fighting rabbits, and new methods are still being studied, but when tens of billions of Australian rabbits will be completely defeated is still unknown.
The nearly twenty rabbits that Thomas Austin had introduced for hunting eventually became an intractable scourge in Australia.
postscript
Thomas Austin wasn't the first to bring rabbits to the land of Australia. In fact, rabbits were brought to Australia as early as the end of the eighteenth century. When the colonists first arrived in Australia, they needed to bring some familiar species.
But these rabbits did not become a scourge. Mainly because it is blocked by the blue mountains that stretch up to the top. Moreover, there were not so many British colonists who had the habit of hunting rabbits at that time.
Therefore, the original rabbits only moved on a small scale. It wasn't until the advent of Thomas Austin that rabbits grew exponentially, eventually reaching the point of being uncontrollable.
Although it was an inadvertent mistake, this rabbit plague that lasted for more than a hundred years was ultimately caused by the Europeans themselves. In the end, they can only bear the consequences themselves.