JoJo the five-year-old kelpie-jack russell-whippet cross. Photograph: Tracks Australia<\/p>\n
There is an ongoing battle at Bon Bon to keep rabbit numbers in check, especially after recent rains. Fresh shoots of native plants like acacia and mulga should be providing habitat for native species but are instead becoming food and breeding fuel for rabbits<\/a>.<\/p>\n The population growth at Bon Bon and Boolcoomatta reserve to the east, is being repeated around Australia.<\/p>\n The European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, is one of Australia\u2019s worst feral pests.<\/p>\n After a wet winter in central and southern parts of the country, their numbers are booming.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve noticed increases all around the country,\u201d the director of research, development and engagement at the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions (CISS), Dr John Virtue, says.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n In particular, Virtue points to rabbit hotspots in southern parts of Western Australia, suburban Canberra; peri-urban areas around Adelaide; the New South Wales Riverina; and southern Queensland.<\/p>\n In Albany in southern WA, rabbits at \u201cplague-levels\u201d<\/a> have invaded farms and one of the country\u2019s top golf courses. Greens on the golf course had as many as 30 rabbits \u201chaving a party\u201d each evening<\/a> and grounds staff have been battling to fill holes dug by the rabbits.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can get to incredible numbers and you see the whole landscape gets denuded,\u201d Virtue says.<\/p>\n From 24 to 200 million<\/p>\n Though they were introduced on the first fleet during the British invasion in 1788, research has traced the species\u2019 continent-wide spread<\/a> to one consignment of 24 rabbits brought in to the country by settler Thomas Austin in 1859.<\/p>\n By the 1920s, rabbits had reached plague proportions with estimates numbering them in their billions. More recent counts put the current population at closer to 200 million but the true number is unknown as there is no formal monitoring.<\/p>\n Their impact on the landscape has been measured. One study found rabbits were having negative effects on 329 threatened species in Australia \u2013 more than any other invasive pest.<\/p>\n They can breed year round with a good food supply, but in temperate areas breeding season is in both autumn and spring after rain. If left alone, a rabbit population can increase tenfold in one season.<\/p>\n A 2020-2021<\/a> estimate suggested rabbits cost the Australian agricultural sector $200m a year.<\/p>\n As well as eating the green shoots of native vegetation and competing with native species for food and space, rabbits also attract feral predators such as cats and foxes, presenting a dangerous triple threat to native wildlife and their habitat.<\/p>\n JoJo flushes rabbits from the landscape and detects warrens. Photograph: Tracks Australia<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of blame that goes on cats and foxes,\u201d says Prof Katherine Moseby, an ecologist and conservation biologist at University of New South Wales. \u201cBut rabbits can sustain them at really high densities. They are the key to controlling cats.\u201d<\/p>\n Broad control of rabbits in Australia has come through the introduction of two viruses \u2013 myxoma in the 1950s and, from the 1990s, versions of calicivirus.<\/p>\n The accidental first release of calicivirus in 1995 saw rabbit numbers plummet by as much as 95% in arid areas. The virus, causing rabbit hemorrhagic disease, escaped from a quarantine facility on Wardang Island in South Australia, probably via insects.<\/p>\n That event, says Moseby, caused \u201cprobably the biggest recovery of threatened species ever seen in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In some places, she says, the density of rabbits per square kilometre dropped from 150 to two. In the years after, some small mammals saw dramatic increases in the areas <\/a>where they were found.<\/p>\n But these viruses are evolving and rabbit populations are developing resistance, helping them to once again take advantage of wet periods to breed in large numbers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really need to be on the lookout for more biological control options, and be doing that all the time,\u201d says Moseby.<\/p>\n In July, the government announced a new program to develop new variants of calicivirus.<\/p>\n Virtue says that \u201cover time, the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus has been losing its effectiveness. This comes back to the need to be releasing new strains every ten to 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n More immediate steps available to landholders to control rabbits include fencing, poisoning and the fumigation and ripping of warrens, as well as licensed shooting.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789333216_184_2998.jpg\")
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