Rabbits have become an ecological scourge in Australia.
Rabbits have become an ecological scourge in Australia.
drburtoni/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A virus is taming Australia’s bunny menace, and giving endangered species new life
By Ben GoldfarbFeb. 17, 2016 , 10:30 AM
For more than 150 years, Australia has been plagued by rabbits. First introduced by an English settler as hunting fodder in 1859, the European rabbit population soon ballooned to an estimated 10 billion, contributing to extensive environmental damage and the extinction of some native species. Over the past century, biologists tried—and largely failed—to stem the tide with fences, poisons, and pathogens.

Now, an accidental approach seems to be taming the invasion. Since scientists unintentionally released a deadly rabbit virus in 1995, it has wrought havoc on the bunnies—and allowed some endangered native mammals to recover, according to a new study in the journal Conservation Biology.