r/history • u/marketrent • Dec 28 '22
On Christmas Day 1859, a single shipment of 24 English rabbits arrived in Australia, triggering a devastating biological invasion with effects still felt today Article
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/dna-profiling-solves-australia-rabbit-plague-puzzle316
u/paradroid27 Dec 28 '22
So many introduced species here in Australia that just should not be here, rabbits, foxes, deer, sparrows, mynahs, the list is way too long.
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u/asinine_qualities Dec 28 '22
Cats, horses, goats, pigs, camels… all feral & wreaking havoc in the bush.
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u/ccReptilelord Dec 28 '22
How'd you both forget the toads!
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u/Tokenvoice Dec 28 '22
Thats what I was wondering too, this whole list about bad invasive species and say that Camels are one of the worst invasive animals but then skip toads. If asked what are the top three I would have said cats, rabbits, and toads.
The camels being wild is a surprise to me though. Knew we had them, my brother even had a mate whose old man was a camel farmer.
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- Dec 29 '22
Because the Rabbits are nationwide. The cane toads are mostly constrained to Queensland. Mostly
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u/Murky_Macropod Dec 29 '22
Cats and rabbits 100%. (We’re not exposed to toads in Vic so hard to place them)
Honourable mentions to some species of mozzy, rats/mice, and lionfish
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u/diddlerofkiddlers Dec 29 '22
Cats, rabbits and toads are among the worst for being ecosystem changers. Pigs are pretty bad too, and herbivorous grazers like goats, deer and camels wax and wane with rainfall (shitloads atm).
Camels are quite destructive in the outback but we don’t have a huge amount of science on it because they cover huge distances and there are a few million of them we think.
But there are other plants, fungi and other pathogens that are devastating, but people don’t typically care about anything that doesn’t affect agriculture. Myrtle rust is among the most depressing, and Phytophthora cinnamomi too.
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u/asinine_qualities Dec 29 '22 edited Dec 29 '22
Argh, my bias! Cane toads are yet to reach us in WA…
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u/UnrelatedFilth Dec 28 '22
Camels really???
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u/asinine_qualities Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 29 '22
Camels are among the most damaging… they compact soil preventing vegetation…
They’re in plague proportions: we have more in Australia than Saudi Arabia.
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u/BossCrabMeat Dec 28 '22
Let's declare war on them ?
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u/jam-and-marscapone Dec 29 '22
We shoot them for sport. You can only manage their numbers. Pretty hard to erradicate.
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u/ClitClipper Dec 29 '22
Is that due to traits of camel reproduction or just the sheer size of the Australian outback?
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u/Th3_pipes Dec 29 '22
Camel meat is delicious. Let's have mobile abattoirs and a system of refrigerated transportation and get that invasive meat onto Australian dinner plates.
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u/Tokenvoice Dec 28 '22
Weirdly we are one of the biggest exporters of them, even to Saudi Arabia.
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u/nosoupforyou89 Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 29 '22
Yes they were used to construct the railway tracks and stations for the train called the Ghan (Afghanistan). It goes all the way from Adelaide to Darwin. The company that constructed these railways employed camaleers from Afghanistan and referred to them as "Afghans/Ghans" and imported roughly 20,000 camels between 1870 and 1920.
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u/peacemaker2007 Dec 28 '22
between 1870 and 1820
When you write it like that it sounds like you meant BC
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u/UnrelatedFilth Dec 28 '22
You guys are blowing my mind. This is some amazing history I never even heard a whisper about until now
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u/altiuscitiusfortius Dec 29 '22
There's more wild camels in Australia than in Saudia Arabia. There is a large feral herd of about 800k camels in the outback last I checked.
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u/BucketHeadddd Jan 01 '23
This sounds like you checked them out personally. "Yup, looks like 800k!"
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u/BanjoMothman Dec 28 '22
Feral cats are one of the worst invasive species on the planet. It boggles my mind that in America we still let people leave their cats run amok and havent incentivized the elinination of feral packs.
I totally understand the need for pest control in rural areas, but when people let their barn cat turn into 4 litters a year of wild apex predators its a serious issue
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u/brezhnervous Dec 28 '22
Quite difficult to shoot feral cats
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u/BanjoMothman Dec 28 '22
The physical act isn't hard, but the legality and ethics of it in most places would certainly make it not worth trying at all, and I wouldn't at all advocate that people go out and start shooting something that could be an irresponsible owner's pet.
I remember listening when I was little to an interview on NPR with a gentleman in Australia who was campaigning for a feral cat hunting season in Australia due to the massive negative impact on native fauna, especially wild birds. He had to work really hard to keep his private information a secret because he was consistently sent death threats and attacked. I've tried to search for the interview casually since then but didn't find it.
I understand that cats are creatures that naturally need activity, but that should be something people carefully consider when owning one. We've been incredibly irresponsible with how we have just let them turn feral by the millions and wipe out native populations of critters.
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u/tommo_95 Dec 28 '22
I live in rural Australia and the town I'm in has a major feral cat problem. Cats are trapped regularly and if they don't have a tag they are put down immediately. They cause so much damage to the native wildlife it isn't funny.
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u/Staerebu Dec 29 '22
Shooting animals is a pretty pointless attempt at population control for small animals in a country as large as the continental US
Reducing the population just means more resources for the population to rapidly recover
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u/WhileMyDreamsDecay Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 28 '22
25 introduced mammals including sheep and cattle, horses, dogs and dingoes. Not that many but many problematic ones that should never have been introduced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placental_mammals_introduced_to_Australia
https://trishansoz.com/trishansoz/animals/australia-introduced-animals.htmlHouse mouse, Pacific rat, Brown rat, Black rat,
Five-lined palm squirrel, Eastern grey squirrel,
European rabbit, European hare,
Dingo, Red fox,
Cat, Chital, Indian hog deer, Red deer, European fallow deer, Rusa deer, Sambar deer,
Goat, Banteng, Water buffalo,
Dromedary,
Feral pig,
Brumby, Donkey,
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u/h3rpad3rp Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 28 '22
The earliest known dingo fossil, found in Western Australia, dates to 3,450 years ago
-Dingo wikiI thought Dingos only live in Australia?
Edit: ahh, it was introduced "probably by asian seafarers" almost 4000 years ago.
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- Dec 29 '22
Dingoes are an example of a "naturalized" species. They've been part of the ecosystem for so long they not only evolved to be distinct from other breeds of canine the environment around them adapted to their existence.
Still had a devastating impact with what was known as the "Tasmanian Tiger" going extinct on mainland Australia because of Dingoes and Humans. Many animals that are "Tasmanian X" weren't like magically evolved only on the tiny island of Tasmania, they were Australian species in general that got wiped out on the mainland and clung onto survival on a tiny isolated island.
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u/majorjoe23 Dec 28 '22
Dont forget Chazzwazzers.
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u/Imentducking Dec 29 '22
Don’t forget about European carp. Those bastards have wreaked our river systems and destroyed native fish populations.
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u/Murky_Macropod Dec 29 '22
Was surprised to see goat so high on this list
Australia’s 10 worst invasive species
European rabbit 321
Phytophthora plant disease 236
Feral pig 149
Feral cat 123
Feral goat 116
European red fox 95
Lantana 95
Blackberry 47
Black rat 42
Feral cattle 39
Australia’s top 10 invasive species and the number of Australian threatened species they affect.
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u/theballisrond Dec 29 '22
Are there not enough snakes in australia to take care of most of these? Should Australia import more snakes?
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u/simbapiptomlittle Dec 29 '22
Fark no. Haven’t we already seen what happens when they introduce other living critters.
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u/Cyanopicacooki Dec 29 '22
You can say the same about the UK, and oddly rabbits are on that list too (the Romans brought them over here)...
Let's be honest, we're pretty bad at preserving ecologies.
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u/NoFilanges Dec 28 '22
… humans from countries other than Australia…
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u/Th3_pipes Dec 29 '22
That would include Aboriginal people too, it's just that they arrived 60k years earlier than Europeans.
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Dec 29 '22
[deleted]
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u/Th3_pipes Dec 29 '22 edited Dec 29 '22
That's actually completely incorrect. When homosapiens arrived in Australia, it had massive impacts on flora and fauna in a very short period. Same story wherever humans go.
edit: for example.
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u/fezzik02 Dec 28 '22
They say the South Sydney Rabbitohs socks are red and green to represent running through the grass and... um... addressing the rabbit problem.
Apparently Rabbitoh was a career.
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u/razor_eddie Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 28 '22
It was - a very trad career.
They used to sell trapped/shot rabbits on the street, and the cry to the customers was "Rabbit-O". Hence....
EDIT: Sorry, this took a while to come out of long-term storage. One of the most famous hecklers in Commonwealth (as opposed to American) sport was a Rabbito.
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gascoigne-stephen-harold-yabba-6286
There's a statue to him at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
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u/brezhnervous Dec 28 '22
There were rabbitohs everywhere when my Mum was growing up. They'd come around with a horse and cart with a mass of rabbits hanging off the back. My grandmother would ask her to go out and pick up a couple of rabbits from him - skinned while you wait.
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u/Thatparkjobin7A Dec 28 '22
These bloody things are everywhere! They're in the lift, in the lorry, in the bond wizard, and all over the malonga gilderchuck!
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u/Fireproof_Cheese Dec 28 '22
That's a bloody outrage, it is! We should take this all the way to the prime minista!
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u/p5ych0babble
Dec 28 '22
•
There was also the devastating events of 1995 where one single toad was released by a child named Bartholomew "Bart" Simpson who had arrived from the United States.
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u/HeartBorne7thSeeker Dec 28 '22
I'm going to take this all the way to the prime minister! EH, MISTER PRIME MINISTER!
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u/TurboSalsa Dec 28 '22
At the same time the koala was accidentally introduced to the United States. It appears not to have flourished.
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u/Illuminaso Dec 28 '22
It's amazing how such a small spark can trigger such huge ecological changes. That's just the way of the world though, I guess.
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u/4x4is16Legs Dec 28 '22
Make rabbit stew a popular dish, and add to dog and cat food?
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- Dec 29 '22
Such a method would only work in a much higher density and poorer country. "Make animal into popular food to control said animals population" only works when you have poor people willing to go hunting for them, and for a larger demographic of poor people who will buy said meat en masse.
If rabbit became a popular dish in Australia, annoyingly the likely result would be the meat would be IMPORTED, cause we are a rich, small population nation.
Why buy gamey rabbit hunted from a feral population when we can import nicer quality farmed rabbit meat from overseas.
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u/Kerrigan4Prez Dec 29 '22
Texas has a bit of a similar problem with feral pigs. They encouraged people to hunt the animals to help control it, then businesses sprung up to help people hunt the pigs, and now the businesses lobby against measures to control the feral pig population.
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u/Dont_PM_PLZ Dec 29 '22
That's where property, farmers and other businesses affected by feral pigs counter lobby. Feral hogs cost over $1 billion a year in Texas alone.
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u/llagnI Dec 29 '22
If rabbit became a popular dish in Australia, annoyingly the likely result would be the meat would be IMPORTED
Or farmed, meaning the wild population would be left to carry on as normal.
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u/terfez Dec 28 '22
I’ve heard that Hawaii did not have mosquitoes until they were introduced by explorers. Can you imagine such a magical place? Fack
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Dec 28 '22
One of the tour guides there said the same thing about spiders when I visited.
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u/RobotSlaps Dec 29 '22
Never trust a recreational tour guide. 2/3 but the spiders in Hawaii are native.
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u/CrazyOkie Dec 28 '22
Always found it funny that despite all the nasty, venomous and otherwise incredibly lethal species that live in Australia - snakes, spiders, crocs, etc - the rabbit somehow not only survives but thrives.
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u/Paxton-176 Dec 28 '22
You would think the snakes would have taken care of it.
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u/Ldefeu Dec 28 '22
That was the original plan, then of course we import gorillas to take care of the snakes, and the gorillas all freeze to death come winter to restore balance
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u/Staerebu Dec 29 '22
Well you can still own pet rabbits in most of the country so you're not really stemming the flow
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u/CranialEctomy Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 28 '22
This is why Australia don't celebrate Easter with an Easter Bunny. Instead the role is filled by a bilby, an endangered native marsupial.
Edit: Apparently my info was outdated and the tradition has fallen off in the last decade or so. I'm disappointed to hear this; I really liked the idea of highlighting local ecological issues while also tying national identity to a preexisting holiday tradition. It's a shame that social campaign didn't take off more
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u/aquaman501 Dec 28 '22
Lol how did this get so many upvotes. Easter Bilbies are a niche fad and hardly anyone here knows about them or is interested in them.
This is why Australia don't celebrate Easter with an Easter Bunny.
This is just completely false.
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u/Tokenvoice Dec 28 '22
Been longer than a decade mate, started back in the 90s at least. My old man wanted a bilby every year but everyone else got rabbits because it was cheaper than a bilby.
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u/freezingkiss Dec 28 '22
Rabbits, deer, cane toads, wrecked havoc on Australia's unique environment, the old lot weren't smart.
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- Dec 29 '22
Oh they were plenty smart they were just big homesick babies too. "Waah I miss England, lets make this place more like England" cue spreading rabbits and mass forest clearing for pastures covered in cows and sheep
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u/Falcon3492 Dec 28 '22
Nutria is another example of an invasive animal being brought into a country and running amok.
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u/SantaBrian Dec 29 '22
No one has mentioned the Cochineal Beetle introduction and the blunders after.
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u/sailorjasm Dec 28 '22
In the news there seems to be numerous rabbit killing diseases that pop up from time to time. They should just ship the rabbits there
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u/cisforcake Dec 28 '22
LOL...After 134 years I think it's safe to say the invasion was successful. Invasion implies there is a way to get back to a pre-invasion state. The rabbits are part of the ecosystem there now. Just because they were not there prior to 1859 doesn't make their existence there unnatural. It sounds like they're thriving pretty well.
Curiously nobody ever talks about the biggest invasive species of all...human beings.
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u/HellisDeeper Dec 28 '22
The rabbits are part of the ecosystem there now.
Says the guy who knows nothing about ecosystems. The rabbits have been there for 134 years, not 134,000 years... It takes more than a few baker's dozens of generations to integrate into a completely different environment and ecosystem on the other side of the planet.
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u/EvilioMTE Dec 29 '22
The destructive impact to the continent of Australia from humans after 70,000 years of habitation is widely discussed, with the almost complete eradication of mammals and the increase in bushfires, drought, and flood a major concern and talking point.
Jump off your little soapbox.
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u/cisforcake Dec 29 '22
No soap box here friend. I wasn’t part of that conversation and just trying to add my perspective. I realize it’s hard to convey that in a short lighthearted blurb.
Would appreciate you pointing me to some source material rather than admonishing me.
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u/puerility Dec 28 '22
people talk about humans' effect on nature all the time. they just don't use the term invasive species because there's no reason to get cute with semantics on such a serious topic
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u/cisforcake Dec 28 '22
Although my comment was made half in jest, I was merely trying to bring attention to how humans as a species have gone into many areas of the globe where we once were not so what makes that acceptable vs flora/fauna expanding into areas of the world where they did not originate?
In this case the rabbits were introduced to the environment by humans but would it be different if the rabbits found they way over on their own? Would they still be considered an invasive species then? Are they only considered invasive in context of the local animal population?
Where is that line drawn?
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u/kain52002 Dec 28 '22
I am also surprised. When it comes to the most devastating invasive species on the planet nothing comes remotely close to homo sapien.
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u/ARXEUS_ Dec 28 '22
Australian animals wanna kill Humans
Meanwhile all other animals wanna kill them
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u/ThatGIRLkimT Dec 28 '22
I love rabbits, if there's a chance I would love to have different variants
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u/Professional_Ad6123 Dec 28 '22
And y’all still got murderous bugs and animals for centuries to come
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u/HaikuBotStalksMe Dec 28 '22
And we'll do it again, so you'd better be careful, Straya!
Note to the VI) : this was a joke; please do not boomerang me in my sleep.
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u/AHorseNamedPhil Dec 30 '22
The elimination of the Tasmanian tiger and a great reduction in the number of dingos probably hasn't helped.
It's a similar situation with feral hogs in parts of the United States. Aside from being an introduced species, animals that would have helped reduce the often destructive ecological impact of introduced hogs by preying on them, like wolves, cougars, or bears...are gone.
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u/marketrent Dec 28 '22
Excerpt:
J. Alves et al., ‘A single introduction of wild rabbits triggered the biological invasion of Australia’, PNAS (2022), DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122734119