The World Wildlife Fund warns that a population explosion of rabbits is threatening a remote Australian island’s seabird populations. That’s right, rabbits. We Americans think of them as cute, harmless long-eared friends that occasionally lay chocolate eggs or hybridize with antelopes. But in That Other Hemisphere, they are threatening a 4-million-strong seabird colony using little more than those sinister buck teeth.
Seal hunters introduced rabbits to Macquarie Island around 1880 (presumably because they were tired of eating seal). By 1960, scientists were calling rabbit grazing “catastrophic” in the Journal of Ecology and warning that if left unchecked, the rabbits could chew their way to major landslides. That’s because the dominant grasses had roots strong enough to collect several feet of peaty soil and hold it in place on steep slopes. Once those roots died, the scientists warned, the soil would slip.
Rabbit numbers had reached about 10,000 by the 1980s, and there was nowhere to go but up. Macquarie reached the 100,000-rabbits mark in recent years. And now, the World Wildlife Fund and Reuters report, the land has started to slip – 20 slides in the last month. Right down onto the nests of thousands of breeding albatrosses, petrels, and royal penguins, not to mention about 100,000 momma and baby seals.
The Australians are suitably concerned — one researcher has called for a $10 million rabbit-riddance campaign (large vacuum cleaner, perhaps?). But it’s interesting that even in the 1960 article, the authors noted that once the grass dies and slips begin, they will be hard to stop.
It’s a familiar arc – a population starts small on an idyllic patch of ground, uses God-given gifts (in this case, excellent nibbling skills) to get ahead, slowly goes from thriving to burgeoning, and eats up all its surroundings. At which point the island falls in on itself, chucking the rabbits into the cold Southern Ocean along with most of the other species that live alongside it. Sound like anyone you know?
surf.bird.scribble. 
Hi, Hugh. For lack of a better place, I’ll use this latest post to make the generalized comment that I’ve spent about the last hour browsing your archives, and found many of your posts quite interesting. I expect I’ll be checking back regularly, but in the future I’ll probably restrict my comments to things relevant to the associated post.
Hi Eric, and thanks for reading. Any comments on what’s interesting, not interesting, missing, etc. greatly appreciated. Best, Hugh
Hugh, as someone who killed rabbits Down Under for a short time (while volunteering for a conservation group on the mainland), I can attest that the vaccum cleaner method is no good. We tried and constantly got our vacuums jammed-up. Finally, we had to resort to a makeshift catapult, sending the critters into orbit over the Outback. Eventually, they learned to fly and became a new species of pest in Oz known as “winged bunnos.” Though you won’t find that on Wikipedia.
I think I read recently, that there was a cat population that was wreaking havoc on the birds. The cats were eliminated and that’s when the rqbbits got out of control. I believe I read this in the Druge Report