Rabbits encouraged and protected by early South Australian European settlers before 1870 release exposes menace
South Australia's early European settlers encouraged and even protected rabbits introduced into the province, not realising that two rabbits had to potential in apredator-fee environment, had the potential to produce four million progeny over their lifetime.
Image courtesy PIRSA
A major release of rabbits into South Australia at Anlaby Station near Kapunda around 1870 overcame previous unsuccessful attempts to establish them from the start of the province’s European settlement. It soon exposed the rabbit menace.
Rabbits arrived with the first fleet of colonists in South Australia, aboard the John Pirie in 1836. Rabbits were released at sites including Encounter Bay and Henley Beach but the early attempts were supressed by dingoes and wild dogs. Those released onto Granite (formerly Rabbit) Island, Wright and West islands south of Adelaide flourished. Rabbits were available from the Adelaide Market in 1843, were running wild in Adelaide gardens by 1864, and were being bred on market gardens in the Adelaide Hills in 1871.
At European settlement, mainland Australia hosted a suite of predators that preyed on rabbits. They included the dingo, four quoll species, raptors such as the wedge-tailed eagle, little eagle, brown falcon and swamp harrier; and goannas. Rabbits didn’t establish on Kangaroo Island after a deliberate release there in the mid 1800s, probably because of abundant goannas. Several predators of rabbits were extensively hunted by early settlers to protect their livestock and poultry. Strychnine became available in the 1850s, making it feasible to control dingoes and quolls at a local scale. In 1864, rabbits were protected from hunters for four months per year (during the main breeding season) under the Games Act.
Just before 1870, a big release of rabbits was made at Anlaby Station near Kapunda, where the South Australia governor attended for a day’s shooting. The Anlaby rabbits spread widely – the South Australian equivalent to the Barwon Park release in Victoria. By 1875, rabbits had reached as far as the southern Flinders Ranges.
Public attitudes soon changed and in 1875 the Rabbit Destruction Act gave district councils the power to compel landowners to destroy rabbits on their land. The Act was strengthened in 1878, making the commissioner of crown lands responsible for controlling rabbits on all crown land and pastoral leases, and forbidding the release of a rabbit into the wild, with a 1879 Rabbit Suppression Act 1879. Bounties on rabbit scalps were introduced with landholders obliged to destroy rabbits.
The options for controlling the devastating pest were fumigating them with carbon bisulphide, trapping, dogging, netting, shooting and poisoning. By the early 1880s, the eastward spread of rabbits from Kapunda had merged with those spreading west from Barwon Park in Victoria, “forming a single block of infested country from Spencer Gulf to the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range". Rabbits continued to spread, averaging 110 to130 kilometres a year, to the west and north. Barrier fences to contain rabbits but only momentarily delayed their advance. A conference in Brisbane in 1888 resolved that rabbit scalp bonus systems should be prohibited as counter productive.
Where rabbits spread, they suppressed many perennial tree and shrub species, overgrazed palatable species resulting in unpalatable or undesirable plants increasing, denuded soil surfaces and accelerated erosion. They competed with stock for forage and with other wildlife, like bilbies, for habitat. In the 1880s, grain yields in South Australia’s south east were halved by rabbits. Rabbits also became a major food source for wild dogs/dingoes, cats and foxes, boosteing their populations that impacted wildlife and stock.
During drought, rabbits hung on until landscapes were devasted. The eventual crashes in rabbit numbers led to human health problems with rabbit carcasses fouling water supplies. As good seasons followed drought, rabbits were able to rebound. Cyanide and phosphorus also were applied for rabbits, especially in the early 1900s – all killing species that weren't their target.
