In the early days of the settlement of Australia, enterprising settlers
unwisely introduced the European rabbit. This rabbit had no natural enemies in
the Antipodes, so that it multiplied with that promiscuous abandon
characteristic of rabbits. It overran a whole continent. It caused devastation
by burrowing and by devouring the herbage which might have maintained millions
of sheep and cattle. Scientists discovered that this particular variety of
rabbit (and apparently no other animal) was susceptible to a fatal virus
disease, myxomatosis. By infecting animals and letting them loose in the
burrows, local epidemics of this disease could be created. Later it was found
that there was a type of mosquito which acted as the carrier of this disease
and passed it on to the rabbits. So while the rest of the world was trying to
get rid of mosquitoes, Australia was encouraging this one. It effectively
spread the disease all over the continent and drastically reduced the rabbit
population. It later became apparent that rabbits were developing a degree of
resistance to this disease, so that the rabbit population was unlikely to be
completely exterminated. There were hopes, however, that the problem of the
rabbit would become manageable.#
Ironically, Europe, which had bequeathed the rabbit as a pest to Australia,
acquired this man-made disease as a pestilence. A French physician decided to
get rid of the wild rabbits on his own estate and introduced myxomatosis. It
did not, however, remain within the confines of his estate. It spread through
France, Where wild rabbits are not generally regarded as a pest but as sport
and a useful food supply, and it spread to Britain where wild rabbits are
regarded as a pest but where domesticated rabbits, equally susceptible to the
disease, are the basis of a profitable fur industry. The question became one
of whether Man could control the disease he had invented.&