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Rabbits and Phillip Island |
Copyright Peter Coyne. No part of this page may be republished without permission. |
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Incredible! |
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Although rabbits did not begin the damage to the vegetation of Phillip Island, they probably survived as the only feral grazing animals on the island for close to one hundred years. During that period rabbits alone were responsible for the remarkable lack of plant growth (as the background photo shows). Photographs taken on Phillip Island in 1906 by J W Beattie show a landscape almost identical to that of 1979. A few of the remnant trees in Beattie’s photographs had died and rotted away and in some areas the erosion during the intervening period was clear, but otherwise there was no change. An experimental program begun in 1979 to investigate the effects of the rabbits and the potential for regeneration used fences to exclude the rabbits from some areas. Within months the evidence was dramatic and the scale of the fencing was increased. Although the program was intended to take three years, the outcome of the first year was so spectacular the first Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly decided to ask the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service to eradicate the rabbits. |
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Eradication of rabbits from Phillip Island was a huge undertaking. Although about 200 hectares in area, the island is extremely rugged, with cliffs of more than 200 metres in height and significant parts of the island considered inaccessible to people. The first approach to eradicating the rabbits was with a very virulent laboratory strain of the myxoma virus. The virus would quickly kill every rabbit infected but was not very infectious. European rabbit fleas were introduced as the vector for the virus. Fleas and virus were shot by bow and arrow from cliff tops into inaccessible cliff-bound slopes. One large area required swimming 100–200 metres through shark-infested ocean water to reach it. Other areas were reached by mountain-climbing techniques on the awesome cliffs. Unfortunately the supply of fleas and virus from Australia stopped while a few rabbits remained and the population built up again. |
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The rabbits were eventually eradicated by an intensive poisoning program with 1080 (sodium monofluoroacetate) supplemented by trapping, shooting and fumigating. In the rugged landscape of the island this was an awe-inspiring task which took years of extraordinary effort. Effective eradication was achieved by early in 1986 although one rabbit survived for another two years in an inaccessible area before being found and destroyed. |
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