Who’s the Bunny?
BY MARK KELLETT
When rabbits were brought to Australia in the earliest days of settlement, they were regarded as a luxury food and there was no way of foreseeing the damage they would inflict on the Australian landscape. In fact, at first, rabbits were surprisingly difficult to breed – until an enterprising squatter arranged to import a particularly hardy wild strain.
N 1859 the wealthy squatter The European rabbit (Oryctolagus rabbits selectively under Thomas Austin had a problem. cuniculus) is native to the Iberian domestication, and eventually several Like many of his peers, he had Peninsula and North Africa. A domestic breeds appeared, among risen from modest beginnings to number of these Spanish wild rabbits them the British silver-grey which was I were brought to the Royal Park in valued for its pelt. the ‘squattocracy’ by farming sheep and he saw himself now as part of Guildford in Britain around the turn Austin was not the first to bring of the 13th Century to provide luxury Australia’s landed gentry. He was rabbits to Australia. For as long as food for the royal family. But those planning the stately mansion of Europeans had settled in Australia, rabbits showed a peculiarity that Barwon Park, where he and his family they had brought rabbits with them. centuries later would also be seen in Descriptions of early importations of could live as they believed upper-class Australia. Although their reproductive domesticated rabbits suggest that they English ladies and gentlemen would. capacity is legendary, they are were usually British silver-greys. There However, gentlemen in the mother sedentary and territorial, and were five rabbits among the country enjoyed ‘shooting’ as a sport vulnerable to many types of predators. pathetically small collection of and no suitable game was available on These limitations do not make them livestock brought to feed those who the plains around Barwon Park, so good colonists. Henry III’s practice of travelled with the First Fleet. As Austin decided to import some. One giving breeding pairs to guests spread might be expected for an animal of the various typically English them to many parts of the kingdom, reserved for the gentry, three of these animals he settled on was the rabbit. but only in coastal regions were belonged to Governor Philip, and the Declaring that “The introduction of a escapees able to establish feral other two were owned by officers of few rabbits could do little harm and populations. They remained confined the detachment. might provide a touch of home, in to the coastal regions until the Other free settlers imitated their addition to a spot of hunting”, Austin nineteenth century, and the pleasures rabbit-keeping and demand for rabbits had his nephew, William Mack, bring of hunting and eating them were increased. At around the turn of the 24 rabbits to Australia on the clipper restricted to the gentry by formidable century, the Reverend Samuel Lightning. game laws. Others took to breeding Marsden tried to establish a warren
74 Australian Heritage near his property at Parramatta small island off Wilson’s but he left them unpenned. Promontory. They flourished in When many of them were killed, such numbers that in 1842 the a dog belonging to George Caley, crew of the visiting HMS Beagle a botanist and protégé of Joseph named it Rabbit Island. They Banks, was blamed. It triggered a themselves had introduced row between two of the colony’s rabbits to the uninhabited Deal founding fathers. By the 1820s Island only weeks before, and many residents of Sydney were were much cheered by the breeding rabbits around their capacity of rabbits to colonise homes but, though they must such desolate places. Later, have escaped frequently, they Rabbit Island would be regularly failed to colonise the visited by whalers in search of surrounding district. food and sport. By this time, rabbits were In Melbourne also, rabbits colonising Tasmania with rather provoked disputes between the more success. How or when they colony’s founders. John Pascoe arrived there is unknown but in Fawkner’s party brought 1822 the domesticated rabbit Tasmanian rabbits with them to population attracted the John Batman’s “place for a attention of the Surveyor- village” in 1836, as the Henty General, George William Evans. brothers had done when they Some must have escaped and, founded Portland. No sooner had unlike their relatives in Sydney, As well as his role in the introduction of rabbits to Australia, he turned them free than they succeeded in colonising the Thomas Austin was also the first to import Lincoln sheep. were shot by a Mr Bullett, one of surrounding land. Some five His wife, Elizabeth, founded the Austin Hospital in Henry Batman’s men. This years later the Colonial Times and Melbourne. Image courtesy of Barwon Park. incident, with others, caused a Tasmanian Advertiser reported row between Fawkner and rabbits “running about on some of Bass Strait were treacherous, and Batman that was ultimately large estates by thousands”. However, had claimed many ships. Castaways on settled in one of Melbourne’s first the lack of comment in and after this these islands had depended on the cases of arbitration. Though Fawkner report suggests that they were not seasonal presence of mutton-birds for was not compensated for the then regarded as pests. survival. As a more permanent food destruction of his rabbits, the The growing sea-traffic to Tasmania supply, rabbits were turned loose on a arbitrator noted that “some hasty led to a number of Bass Strait islands number of islands. For example, in expression of Mr Batman’s may have being colonised by rabbits. The waters 1836, a sealer introduced rabbits to a led Mr Bullett to destroy the rabbits”.
Barwon Park, Winchelsea, built for Thomas and Elizabeth Austin in 1869 after the royal visit, replaced a less imposing bluestone house. Austin did not have long to enjoy living in it as he died in 1871 at the age of fifty-six. In general, only a few of the early introduction attempts could be considered even partially successful. It is probable that this difficulty in colonising was attributable both to the Australian landscape and to the rabbits themselves. The land around the early settlements was often heavily forested, a type of country not favoured by rabbits. The native inhabitants of these forests, including goannas, various birds of prey, quolls, dingoes and aborigines, would have taken rabbits as enthusiastically as the colonists, convicts, cats and dogs. Slow and docile domestic rabbits would have been poorly equipped to deal with the problems. Though this may explain the success of rabbits of domestic stock colonising southern islands, which had few trees and often no carnivores to threaten them, it leaves unexplained their success in Tasmania, which was heavily forested and in which lived many of the same predators, with Tasmanian devils and thylacines to boot. It seems that some combination of geographical, ecological and perhaps even sociological factors kept rabbits of domestic stock from colonising the mainland. The 24 rabbits that Austin brought to Australia on the Lightning were very different from those used in the early introduction attempts. They were mostly wild rabbits from the feral populations in coastal England (William Mack had only been able to trap 18 wild rabbits, and made up the number with silver-greys). When all arrived alive and well at his estate of Barwon Park in the spring of 1859, Austin was overjoyed. He turned 13 of them loose in the tangled scrub by the Barwon and set about rearing the remaining 11 in paling-fenced paddocks under the watchful eye of a gamekeeper. It is not known how well the early feral rabbits fared, but they were augmented some three years later when floodwaters washed away the fences, allowing some of the domesticated population, now thousands strong, to escape. By this time Austin was holding his first rabbit-shooting A rabbit shoot at Barwon Park. parties, and by 1865 he had developed an efficient routine. On the previous day the gamekeeper would scythe down a large clearing in the long grass by the river and later, during the night, block the entrance to every Evidently someone brought rabbits to Melbourne burrow he could find. Early next morning the guests would afterwards, for within ten years a feral population in the arrive, each with a small retinue of farm hands, and were settlement found the raised foundations of the Police provided with an elaborate breakfast. As the sport began, Office a particularly pleasant place to live. But, like the the farm hands, wielding sticks, would form a line in the Sydney population, they were restricted to the town and long grass, while the guests with their shotguns settled by its immediate surrounds. the clearing. At Austin’s signal, the farm hands would Rabbits were first reported in South Australia in 1837. move slowly forwards. The terrified rabbits, forced to hide It is not known whether they were turned loose through in the shelter of the grass, fled from their noisy advance carelessness or as part of a deliberate introduction, but into the clearing. Caught out in the open, they were easy once free they colonised the surrounding countryside targets. By the time the shooters retired for luncheon, rather more successfully than in any other location on the ‘bags’ in the hundreds were not uncommon. mainland. Two years later sailors were regularly visiting Meanwhile, wild rabbits were breeding or being bred in Point Sir Isaac on the Eyre Peninsula to hunt the swarms a number of other places in Australia. Many of these of rabbits that now lived there. populations were founded by breeding pairs given by Rabbits were also introduced to inland areas, though Austin to his friends, as Henry III had done in England their success was as varied as that of the European settlers. six hundred years earlier. Others arose from wild rabbits In 1863, Albrecht Feez was warned never to return to imported independently from England, though few who New England, New South Wales, as the descendants of did this boasted of it to the press as loudly as did Austin, the rabbits that he had turned loose in 1854 were or would later admit to having done so when the rabbit’s rendering the best land unusable. By contrast, Captain destructive effects became apparent. McLauchlan’s efforts in 1854 to introduce rabbits to his Wild rabbits shared the same colonising strengths and property on the Upper Loddon in Victoria were frustrated limitations as the domestic rabbits introduced earlier. by quolls, which relished newly weaned kittens. Thomas Holt bred wild rabbits on his property near
76 Australian Heritage Sydney in the 1860s; some better suited to colonising of them escaped and spread than those used previously. to neighbouring properties. However, the Australian Though this feral population landscape itself was now more became, in Holt’s own words favourable for the rabbit. “a perfect nuisance”, it did Thick stands of forest had not spread far beyond it, been cleared, leaving suggesting that the factors stretches of the open country that kept the domestic favoured by rabbits. Native rabbits contained remained predators had been shot and in force. poisoned with such In South Australia, enthusiasm that they could however, wild rabbits now make little impression thrived just as the domestic on rabbit numbers. Imported ones had. It is not known predators like dogs, cats and how they got to Australia, foxes were in the early stages but it has been suggested of establishment themselves. that they were not Human predation was at first descended from Austin’s discouraged by legislation The popularity of rabbit shooting amongst wealthy landowners is population. If this is so, patterned on the British game reflected in the stained-glass windows of Rupertswood mansion, Austin cannot be blamed laws, though this changed exclusively for the damage formerly the home of the Clarke family in Sunbury. when the rabbit’s destructive rabbits went on to cause, as capacity became apparent. it was the South Australian rabbits Why did some of these later Austin’s rabbit-breeding enterprise’s that spread to the Mallee and the importations succeed so spectacularly greatest honour was bestowed in 1867 Riverina, where some of the worst where previous efforts had failed? by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. damage occurred. Certainly rabbits of wild stock were The Prince was making a tour of the Empire in command of the frigate, HMS Galatea, and his visit to Australia, the first by a member of the FENCE OR FOLLY? royal family, was the subject of By the turn of the century, rabbits linked with three wires, on to which considerable excitement. Commenting on “the delightful had overrun the colonies of wire mesh was fastened. When all novelty of finding rabbits in such Tasmania, Victoria, New South 3,256 kilometres were completed in abundance in Australia”, the Prince Wales, South Australia, and were 1908 at cost of more than £300,000, probing the borders of Queensland paid a visit to Barwon Park during his it could claim to be the longest fence tour. At a rabbit-shoot that evening, and Western Australia. The in the world. Prince Alfred’s party killed hundreds government of Western Australia, The fences were patrolled by of rabbits. Reports of the bag vary despite the size of the colony, boundary riders under the Chief considerably, but it was large enough decided to follow the other Inspector for Rabbits, Alex for Austin to describe his royal guest Australian colonies and fence most Crawford. After horses, bicycles and as a “dead shot” and for the resulting of it off. motor cars were stymied by the harsh gift of rabbit meat to the people of In 1896, Arthur Mason was sent terrain, the boundary riders turned Winchelsea to be dubbed “Rabbit on a five-month fact-finding mission to camels. When it was realised that Royale”. The Prince wound up staying to determine the extent of the rabbit it was difficult to examine a fence for another shoot the next day, infestation and the likelihood that a from the back of a camel, the delaying his arrival at a civic fence might contain them. When he boundary riders used camel-drawn reception in Colac. returned, having nearly perished in buggies. It is said that the Prince returned to the rugged waterless country, his Austin’s estate for yet another shoot findings were the subject of a royal Crawford and his boundary riders at the conclusion of his tour in 1869. commission, after which surveyor worked in vain. By the end of World By this time, rabbits were wreaking Alfred Canning (later famous for War I rabbits had penetrated all havoc. Farmers were cursing Austin as surveying the Canning Stock Route three fences, just as they had fences escapees from his property ate out from the Kimberley to the WA in other parts of Australia, and for their best land. In vain they goldfields) was sent to select a route. much the same reasons. Such was the scale of the fence that it was surrounded their land with high stone Begun in 1901, the rabbit-proof walls and trenches filled with scrap unlikely that the boundary riders fence (actually three fences, metal and broken bottles. Demand for could detect and seal breaches before containing successively diminished ferrets and rabbiters skyrocketed. The rabbits crossed them. In spite of the areas as the rabbits advanced) was price of Western District land fell to time, effort and money expended on one of most massive undertakings in half of its original value. Austin had Australia up to that time. They were the Rabbit Proof Fence, the 1920s succeeded far beyond his early post-and-wire fences, with posts saw rabbit plagues in Western expectations. Rabbiting had become made from local timber or from iron, Australia. the “perennial pastime, half sporting,
Australian Heritage 77 Evidence of the devastating effects of rabbits on the landscape, Sofala, NSW. half utilitarian”. In 1868, pressured by land might have yielded without When faced with a disaster, complaints from neighbouring them. Fencing, shooting, poisoning, everyone seeks a scapegoat, and the farmers, Austin constructed a wire- trapping and introduced predators, odium of introducing rabbits to netting fence around his property. not only failed to make any Australia has fallen on Thomas But, like many fences after it, the impression on rabbit numbers but as Austin. However, this is at least to rabbits had already escaped by the often as not disrupted native ecology. some extent unjustified. Since rabbits time it was completed. Biological controls pioneered by had lived in Britain and more recently From the 1870s thousands of men CSIRO, such as myxomatosis (1950) Tasmania for years without being across Australia’s pastoral lands were and calicivirus (1995), were more recognised as a pest, it seems unfair to employed as rabbit trappers to control successful, though they were less so in accuse Austin of stupidity for not the plague. So bad was the problem in drier country and their effectiveness realising that they would become so in New South Wales in the 1880s that has been slowly eroded by the mainland Australia. development of disease resistance, the government offered a bounty on Further, if it were stupidity, it was requiring constant efforts to maintain dead rabbits, but in 1887 were forced not confined to Austin. For almost a an uneasy control stalemate. to withdraw it for fear of going broke hundred years, throughout Australia, when claims were made for more than many people worked hard, with a 25 million scalps. Some landholders persistence that in other resorted to poison, killing many circumstances would have been native birds and animals in the commendable, to introduce rabbits to process, while others released cats to Heritage this country and to provide the catch the rabbits, which soon conditions for their success. It was not themselves became feral pests, preying Touring always easy, but they succeeded on wildlife and newborn lambs. Barwon Park Mansion is a spectacularly. In the Western district, rabbits left National Trust property located the land degraded but usable. The 3 km to the north of Winchelsea, Acknowledgments drier bush or grasslands of much of off the Princes Highway between I thank the staff and volunteers of inland Australia, however, were Geelong and Colac in Victoria. reduced to wastelands, useless to Barwon Park Mansion for their The 42-room bluestone mansion farmers as well as disastrous for native assistance in the preparation of this with its stables remains largely in flora and fauna. Rabbits became the article, and acknowledge the work of original condition, and features a staple diet of many Australians, previous writers on the rabbit in magnificent central staircase canned and later frozen rabbit meat Australia, particularly Eric Rolls, John leading to an upper floor adorned was sent to Britain, and rabbit pelts Vandenveld and Tim Low. were used to make felt hats. However, with elaborate pillars and arches. the returns from such efforts to The house is open from 11.00 a.m. The Author exploit the vermin amounted to no to 4.00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Mark Kellett is a biologist and more than about a tenth of what the Sundays, Tel: (03) 5267 2209. freelance writer. ◆
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