In Australia, millions of rabbits - descendants of those introduced for sport hunting the 1859 - died after government agents in the 1950s released a mosquito- and flea-borne virus called myxomatosis.

In 1859, Thomas Austin released 24 European rabbits on his property in Victoria, Australia, for hunting purposes. This seemingly innocuous introduction would become one of the most destructive ...

In 1859, Thomas Austin released 24 European rabbits on his property in Victoria, Australia, for hunting purposes. This seemingly innocuous introduction would become one of the most destructive ...

Austin imported 24 rabbits for breeding in 1859, and introduced them to the land ... Just years after Austin released the furry creatures in Australia, they began to multiply and migrate across the ...

Rabbits came to Australia on the first fleet in 1788, but spread prolifically after grazier Thomas Austin introduced them to south-west Victoria in 1859 for hunting. They quickly spread out of ...

Now that the first month of 2025 is rapidly falling behind us, an assessment of how things are going is in order. I can only tell you how it’s going for me, but from my perspective, it’s going as well ...

Rabbits cost Australia’s agricultural sector almost ... to 13 English animals that were released on Christmas Day in 1859. Thomas Austin, a settler who owned an estate near Geelong, Victoria ...

Battling explosive populations of rabbits is not a new phenomenon in Australia, with Kleinart pointing out that the pests have been present since 1859, and were able to "adapt and thrive and ...

“In a previous study by our team on the colonization of Australia by rabbits, we found that multiple releases of domestic rabbits had occurred over several decades, yet it was a single introduction of ...

"In a previous study by our team, which looked at the colonization of Australia by rabbits ... a single introduction of 24 rabbits with wild ancestry in 1859, by Englishman Thomas Austin ...

That might explain why rabbits in Australia, a continent now overrun ... The rabbit population surged only after 1859, when the introduction of just 24 wild and domestic rabbits began a population ...