Various segments of the community see rabbits either as appealing characters from cartoons and literature, a commercial resource, a subsistence food source, an animal welfare concern or a major pest.
It is unlikely that these deeply held attitudes can be changed quickly, but the public needs to understand the damage caused by rabbits and its implications.
Scientists and state and territory land management agencies must communicate to legislators, land managers, landholders and the public the damage caused by rabbits and ensure these people have sufficient information to make appropriate rabbit management decisions.
Rabbits as a resource:
— Rabbits are harvested in the wild and domestic rabbits are farmed for food and raised as pets and show animals. The associated industries are small; for example, the annual value of wild rabbit harvesting is estimated to be about $10 million.
The promotion of wild harvesting and other forms of commercial use may inhibit effective rabbit management through, for example, providing a case against the introduction of new biological control agents.
The authors believe the commercial use of wild rabbits has no role to play in managing rabbit impact, mainly because wild rabbit harvesting is usually from high density rabbit populations, and this will not reduce densities to a level where damage is effectively managed.
Aboriginal use of rabbits:
— Some Aboriginal groups include rabbits as a major part of their diet and perceive them as an integral part of the land. It is important that Aboriginal communities have access to information on the long-term consequences of high rabbit numbers, which may include loss of traditional values as well as ecological impacts.
State and territory land management authorities need to work closely with Aboriginal people to assist them to make land-use decisions which meet their needs and enable ecologically sustainable land use.
Animal welfare:
— Some rabbit control practices are inhumane. The steel-jawed trap should be banned. The fumigant chloropicrin should be phased out once a more humane alternative is found.
While some suffering must be expected with the use of techniques recommended in this report, their strategic application would minimise suffering by maintaining reduced rabbit populations, thereby minimising the need for repeated treatments.
Myth of the super bug:
— The success of myxomatosis in the 1950s has caused unrealistic expectations of biological control.
Consequently many land managers may not put much effort into conventional rabbit management because of high hopes of future control by new biological control agents such as myxomatosis transmission via the aridadapted Spanish flea, rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD), also called rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD), and virallyborne immunocontraception.
Release of such new agents will be years away, however, even if these research projects succeed. Virally vectored immunocontraception in particular, is long-term high risk research, and it is too early to predict whether it will be successful.
New techniques will only complement, not replace, conventional control, and the challenge will be to use conventional control techniques to take maximum advantage of lowered rabbit densities following biological control.
Maintenance control was rarely undertaken after the release of myxomatosis. Land managers cannot afford to rely on the potential of new agents to save them from action now.
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