"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote:


In Australia, the bunnie lovers almost killed the ranches from what I heard.

Total load of ****ing cods wallop.
Rabbits (, hares, foxes, numerous birds, trout, etc) were brought to
Australia by various acclimatisation societies in the 19th century,
where they basically ran amuck because there were insufficent predators.

The real scream about rabbits has been for decades from people wanting
to farm them, but arse hole bureacrats in various agriculture/primary
industry government departments said no. I notice they are finally
winning. It might had had something to do with the embarrassing fact
that all that rabbit fur that goes into the aussie icon, the Akubra hat,
actually comes from NZ. {;-).

So far, it is rabbits 2, CSIRO 0. (CSIRO is Aust government funded
research organisation) Twice the CSIRO have developed ways (myxo and
calici) to kill rabbits and both time the old bunnies sprung back.
Interestingly, both times the virus was released early from testing on
an off shore island by being transmitted by the humble blow fly (wtf -
that is the CSIRO's excuse).

What really ensures the bunny is going to be around for a long, long
time is old farmers and their sons who lived through the depression and
various droughts. Rabbits are the closest most people can come to living
off the land (unless you can stomach cat). So, most have a patch hidden
away, just in case another hard times come around.

Also, shooting bunnies is a very good way to learn gun and hunting
skills.

At one stage, if you wanted to **** off the agricultural show societies,
you would ring up and ask if there as a category for rabbits at the
show. You could hear the contempt dripping off their tounge as they made
a polite replay. Now, I understand there are some bunny shows, but they
do not have any polly muscle.