About 200 million rabbits wreak havoc on crops and native plants in Australia, causing $200 million a year in agricultural damage. A new study has found that nearly all of them can be traced back to a shipment for a 19th century English settler.
On Christmas Day 1859, a shipment of 24 rabbits arrived in Melbourne, Australia, from England. The bunnies were a gift for Thomas Austin, a wealthy English settler who aimed to establish a colony of the creatures on his Australian estate. He accomplished that—and then some.
Austin was not the first person to bring rabbits Down Under. Five of the animals were aboard the first fleet of British ships to reach Sydney in 1788, the beginning of roughly 90 rabbit introductions along Australia’s eastern coast over the next 70 years. Yet Austin’s bunnies were the ones that came to dominate the continent, a new study finds. About 200 million rabbits now wreak havoc on crops and native plants, causing $200 million a year in agricultural damage.
pinpointed several genetic similarities between Australian rabbits and bunnies in southwestern England The genetics gave clues to why this population was primed for invasion. Accounts of earlier Australian rabbits mention floppy ears and fancy colored fur, two traits common in domesticated rabbits, suggesting they may have been too tame to adapt to Australia’s wild landscape. But Australian rabbits descended from Austin’s brood had a large amount of wild ancestry, the genetic analysis revealed.