Wild rabbits are a disaster in Australia, and Sichuan people are very "anxious"

Audit expert: Ran Hao

Well-known science writer

When talking about rabbits, many people first think of their agile posture and cute eyes. Of course, some people will also think of Sichuan delicacy - spicy rabbit head, and the popular movie line "Rabbits are so cute, why eat rabbits?"

In China, they are harmless, but in Australia they are regarded as "aggressors" and even condemned by everyone. Let's find out what's going on today.

History of Rabbit Invasion

Australia is a continent with a good ecological environment and a wide variety of species, but rabbits are not native to Australia. They came to this continent with British colonists. In the 18th century, Britain began to colonize Australia. The first batch of colonists brought some rabbits to raise due to food shortages. Unlike Europe, Australia lacks natural enemies of rabbits and has abundant water and grass. People soon realized that this land is very suitable for raising rabbits.

Origin of the rabbit | Wikipedia

But it was a colonist named Thomas Austin who really caused the rabbits to spread across Australia. In order to satisfy his hunting hobby, he imported 24 rabbits (13-24 rabbits, different reports have different records) from family land in the west of England and released them on his farm. Like most domestic rabbits raised by humans today, these rabbits from Britain are biologically Oryctolagus cuniculus . Oryctolagus cuniculus are good at digging holes, and they have an amazing reproduction rate. A female rabbit can give birth to at least 24 baby rabbits in a year, and it only takes 6 months for the baby rabbits to be able to reproduce from birth.

Their amazing reproductive ability even offset the defects caused by inbreeding. Coupled with the lack of natural enemies, in less than a few years, the number of these rabbits reached tens of thousands. Many of them escaped from the farm by digging holes, thus marking the beginning of their invasion of Australia .

These rabbits that escaped into the wild spread to the vast Australian continent and reproduced wildly on this blessed continent. At the beginning of the 20th century, their number reached a terrifying 10 billion . It should be noted that the world's population only broke through the 8 billion mark some time ago. This group of wild rabbits had already exceeded 10 billion at that time, which shows their amazing reproduction speed. The crazy growth of these rabbits is also used as an example of "J-shaped growth" in biology textbooks.

The world's population reaches 8 billion Source | People's Daily

The direct problem caused by the excessive number of wild rabbits is the deterioration of Australia's ecological environment . These greedy herbivores eat almost all the tender shoots and seedlings of grass, shrubs and trees, turning the fertile land into barren. Because the rabbits dig holes to build nests, problems such as soil erosion and land desertification are becoming increasingly serious, causing immeasurable impacts on Australia's ecological environment.

Source of the hare infestation | See watermark

At the same time, hares inevitably have to compete with other species in the process of reproduction. Due to the large number of hares, the food of these original species has been robbed, and their habitats have been occupied, thus facing the risk of extinction. Humans have also suffered huge economic losses . First of all, agriculture has been damaged by hares, and the damage to the land caused by hares has caused great harm to agriculture. Secondly, animal husbandry. Australia is known as the "country riding on the back of sheep", but due to hares eating grass, the sheep lack feed, which has severely hit the animal husbandry industry.

"Human-Rabbit War"

In order to deal with the series of hazards caused by the rampant rabbits, the Australian government has been waging a century-long "human-rabbit war" . The most traditional methods of killing and plugging holes are naturally ineffective due to the rapid reproduction of rabbits. At the end of the 19th century, the helpless Australian government offered a reward of up to 25,000 pounds to solicit methods to eliminate rabbits.

This move attracted many people, including microbiologist Pasteur , the founder of "pasteurization". He sent his three assistants to Australia to use chicken cholera virus to eliminate wild rabbits, but due to the different physiological structures of the two species, the plan failed.

Pasteur Source | Internet

Some people also proposed to eliminate the rabbits by introducing foxes, the natural enemies of rabbits. This method did have a certain effect, but people found that foxes were also preying on other native species while preying on rabbits, which put them at risk of extinction. Later, due to the swiftness and agility of rabbits, foxes gradually gave up preying on rabbits. So far, this method has also failed.

After that, in order to protect the last piece of pure land - the agricultural area in the west, the Australian government decided to build a wire fence across the Australian continent to block the rabbits, just like the famous Great Wall of China. After seven years of construction, the world's longest man-made wire fence was completed in 1908. However, after several years of wind and sun, the wire fences were severely corroded, and coupled with the rabbits' ability to dig holes, the wire fences had little effect.

Later, the Australian government even sent out war bombers to kill the rabbits by dropping poison gas bombs , but this also caused serious casualties among farm animals. After that, the government also banned people from privately raising rabbits, and those who violated the rules would face fines or even imprisonment.

Rabbit-proof fence source | Hankering for History

Finally, in the 1950s, biologists turned the tide in the “human-rabbit war” by introducing the myxoma virus , which is lethal to wild rabbits but does not affect humans or farm animals. In 1990, the number of wild rabbits was controlled at 600 million, and humans won the war.

Nowadays, biological invasions are becoming more and more common, and there are more and more cases of impacts on the ecosystem. For example, many alien invasive species such as the fall armyworm, tomato leafminer, red fire ant, Canada goldenrod, and Spartina alterniflora have frequently appeared in the newspapers. These "immigrants" rely on their super survival and competitive ability to occupy the living space of native species, destroy the ecological environment, cause economic losses, and even threaten national security. More than half of the 100 most threatening alien invasive species in the world announced by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) have entered my country.

On August 1, 2022, my country's "Measures for the Management of Alien Invasive Species" was officially implemented. The measures clearly state that it is necessary to establish an alien invasive species monitoring system and build a national alien invasive species monitoring network. In addition, the "Biosafety Law of the People's Republic of China" also stipulates that no unit or individual may introduce, release or discard alien species without approval. Therefore, when buying exotic pets, you must take the time to study the animals you buy, understand the origins of the pets, and know the environment they need. You must not abandon the pets because they do not meet the psychological expectations of the breeders. Don't think that the invasion of alien species has nothing to do with you.

The world is experiencing the same cold and heat. This ecological war without the smoke of gunpowder requires the participation of each of us.