page_title: Rabbits in Australia
section_title: Biological measures
hierarchical_section_title: Rabbits in Australia / Control measures / Biological measures
caption_attribution_description: English: Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood.
context_page_description: European rabbits were introduced to Australia in the 18th century with the First Fleet and eventually became widespread. Such wild rabbit populations are a serious mammalian pest and invasive species in Australia causing millions of dollars of damage to crops. Their spread may have been enhanced through the emergence of strong crossbreeds.
  Various methods in the 20th century have been attempted to control the Australian rabbit population. Conventional methods include shooting rabbits and destroying their warrens, but these had only limited success. In 1907, a rabbit-proof fence was built in Western Australia in an unsuccessful attempt to contain the rabbits. The myxoma virus, which causes myxomatosis, was introduced into the rabbit population in the 1950s and had the effect of severely reducing the rabbit population. However, the survivors have since adapted and partially recovered their previous numbers.
context_section_description: Releasing rabbit-borne diseases has proven somewhat successful in controlling the population of rabbits in Australia, but such success as has been achieved did not occur as quickly as was hoped.
  An offer by the New South Wales government of a £25,000 reward for a biological control of rabbits attracted the attention of Louis Pasteur, who proposed using the chicken cholera bacillus (now known as Pasteurella multocida). Although that measure did not prove viable, the association with Pasteur accelerated the introduction of microbiology into Australia.
  On 16 April 1888, the New South Wales government appointed a royal commission "to make a full and diligent inquiry as to whether or not the introduction of contagious diseases amongst rabbits by inoculation or otherwise, or the propagation of diseases natural to rabbits ... will be accompanied or followed by danger to human health or life, or to animal life other than rabbits, or to interfere injuriously with the profitable carrying on of agricultural or pastoral pursuits ..." Under the aegis of the commission, tests were conducted at Rodd Island, and although rabbits who were given food adulterated with chicken cholera bacillus were killed,  no evidence was found of the contagion spreading to healthy rabbits.
  In 1885, Professor Watson of Adelaide University suggested releasing rabbits inoculated with rabbit scab into an enclosed trial area. Limited trials suggested that the measure would be ineffective in the drier parts of the continent.
  In September 1887, Dr Herbert Butcher (1854–1893) of Wilcannia found a number of dead, emaciated rabbits at Tintinallogy Station.  Dr H. Ellis of Sydney and he concluded that the animals had died of a novel disease, which they dubbed Tintinallogy virus. They felt it could be an effective control measure, but whatever the rabbits died from was never proved to be infectious or contagious. It may have been simple starvation caused by natural elements.
  In 1906 and 1907, Jean Danysz, of the Pasteur Institute of Paris, conducted trials on Broughton Island, New South Wales, of a strain of Pasteurella bacteria he had developed, which proved to be specific to rabbits, but it proved to be a less-than-satisfactory control measure. Dr Danysz felt that Broughton Island was a poor choice of test site, and that extensive experiments should be conducted on the mainland. Frank Tidswell, who was his chief Australian collaborator, continued Danysz's trials after he left in 1907, and also began trials of the Yalgogrin, Gundagai, and Picton microbes (named for the stations where infected rabbits were found), but financial support was lacking from the Federal government, or the collaboration of affected states, that would be necessary to prove that the measure safe and effective. The fact that these pathogens did not wipe out whole populations might have raised doubts as to their efficacy.
  In 1950, following research conducted by Frank Fenner, myxoma virus was deliberately released into the rabbit population, causing it to drop from an estimated 600 million to around 100 million. Growing genetic resistance in the remaining rabbits had allowed the population to recover to 200–300 million by 1991.
  To combat that trend, over three years from June 1991, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) comprehensively tested the potential ofa  Calicivirus, which causes rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD), for biological control of wild rabbits. The virus escaped from a quarantine compound on Wardang Island, South Australia, where the field tests were being carried out, and by late October 1995, it was recorded in rabbits at Yunta and Gum Creek, in north-eastern South Australia. By the winter of 1996, the virus was established in Victoria, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The virus was discovered in these area by analyzing livers of dead rabbits. The success of the virus was found to be higher in dry areas, because of a benign calicivirus found in the colder, wetter areas of Australia, which was immunising rabbits ag
caption: Myxomatosis control trial, 1952
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