Rabbits are not native to Australia but, along with other
European pests, arrived by ship in 1788. Within 50 years they were
endemic.
In January 1912 Mr James McGrory of Willarma Station near
Yass claimed in a report published in the Hillston Spectator & Lachlan
River Advertiser that he had poisoned and collected the corpses of 5000 rabbits
in one night, he volunteered three witnesses in case readers disbelieved him.
Record
rabbit catch in the Riverina, The Sydney Mail 28 August 1912
Later that year the Manager of Wagga Wagga’s Borambola Station,
Mr A.P. Wade, boasted a haul of 2000 rabbits in a single night to the Sydney
Mail. The newspaper’s photograph of his inert quarry, arranged with Kondo-esque
neatness, is reproduced above.
As recently as February 2012, the ABC news website reported
Riverina shooters culling more than 1000 bunnies each night.
Just a week ago I went for coffee at the Lucid café in
Gurwood Street (the ‘Paris end’ of Wagga) and saw a miniature lop eared bunny
with markings resembling a Hercules Poirot moustache, fluffily hopping around
nibbling pellets and carrot sticks. When she was ready to leave, its owner (appropriately
enough) popped it into her handbag a la Paris Hilton!
Currently on Gumtree
miniature rex & lop eared bunnies are available in Wagga and Thurgoona for between $30
and $120.
Australia exported frozen rabbit
meat and pelts to Britain from the 1890s onwards. Rabbit stew was a favourite
dish in ‘the old country’ and no less here where its economical and nutritious qualities
sustained many a family during the Great Depression. In the 1940s and 50s rabbit stew was still a rural
favourite cooked over fires in rabbiters’ camps and, according to the Daily Advertiser
of 15 January 1952, introduced to city
lads like Noel Mannering, Bill Pask and Peter Giles
when they ‘went bush’ to celebrate the end of their apprenticeship training. Ah, that 'schoolies' was as benign these days!
In the 21st century, two of Wagga’s most
cherished institutions are Cottontails Harefield Vineyard & Restaurant and
the Curious Rabbit Gallery-Café-Bookshop.
Signage for arts hub in Wagga Wagga (the Paris end) referencing Alice in Wonderland
I think it would be accurate to say that this town has an ambivalent
relationship with the lagomorph.
My own relationship with the species has also waxed and
waned. An English childhood ensured that Beatrix Potter’s tales primed me to
want bunnies as pets. I was given a pair when I was about nine. Benjamin was named
for Potter’s creation, I can’t recall the name of his sibling. They were quite nasty and aggressive. Far from donning tam-o’-shanters and engaging in delightful
whimsy, they scratched and bit me whenever I attempted to handle them or clean out
their hutch and escaped to a neighbour’s (not Mr MacGregor’s) garden the first chance
they got.
Tenniel's and Potter's rabbits - my childhood bunny ideals
Despite this disappointing real life encounter, the rabbits in the books I read were consistently endearing. As well as
Benjamin there was Peter and the Flopsies (we had an EP of Vivienne Leigh telling
their story and singing “We don’t care, we don’t care, we don’t care a fig,
there’s a cabbage in the larder though it isn’t very big (and any way tomorrow
is another day!)” There was Lewis Carroll’s timid, tardy white rabbit who beguiled
Alice into taking that plunge into Wonderland. There were Hazel, Fiver, Campion
and Bigwig making the epic journey to Watership Down in Richard Adams’ 1972 novel.
There were Jane Pilgrim’s delightful Blackberry Farm books and Enid Blyton’s adaptations
of the Brer Rabbit stories.
I was not to get close up and personal with bunnies again
for many years to come. Soon after arriving in Australia it was evident that
rabbits were considered vermin here and subject to a variety of eradication techniques
from baits to fumigation, from buckshot to
germ warfare*. Their fur was also the chief material used in Australia’s national
hat, the Akubra.
Sam Hood's 1927 photograph of Fort Street school boys being shown how Akubra hats were produced - some distinctly ex-looking bunnies as props.
It was quite by chance that we came to own a succession of
pet rabbits in the 2000s. When we still lived in Sydney suburbia a litter was
born under a neighbour’s house and one, whom my daughter named Leslie, hopped into our lives. We had
him less than a fortnight when our ginger cat, Simon chased him and gave him a
bunny cardiac arrest. My daughter was bereft and we actually paid good cash
money for his replacement, a dwarf lop eared rabbit called Waldorf (after a block of apartments
we passed in Parramatta en route to collect him). Waldorf had a mischievous and
engaging nature. He spent some time in his hutch but plenty with us in the house.
Our Friday night ritual was for the family to occupy the sofa and to seat him on
the window sill behind us as we shared a Cadbury’s family block with him and
watched a movie. Waldorf’s life was short – he disappeared one night, probably the
victim of a dog, fox or owl - but evidence was that he had fulfilled his destiny with
a neighbour’s doe as we saw his likenesses hopping about the street a few weeks after his demise.
Waldorf being forced to endure a white rabbit trope - he hated that fob watch and immediately chucked it off the settee
After Waldorf we had Doris, Brian and Stuie – all blow-ins,
or hop-ins, and perhaps (at least the
first two who had lop ears) Waldorf’s descendants. Their fate was sealed when
we moved to Wagga. They did not cope well and succumbed, we thought
at the time, to the heat, but now I wonder if they caught calicivirus. Any way all
three perished within a few months of relocation. Strange thing was that there was
another bunny hopping about, a fawn coloured beauty. An abandoned packet of
pellets and an empty hutch told us it had been the former residents’ pet. It seemed
well adapted to the climate but our neighbour ran it over in her 4 wheel drive.
So the Riverina is no place for rabbits unless they are on a
wine bottle label or a bookstore’s signage. However wild ones do abound so I
guess the rifle totin’ locals can still catch a cheap tasty feed or contribute to the Akubra supply chain!
*Anthropomorphic and cute though bunnies may have been in
British literature I realised on a trip back to the UK in 1984 that the country
of my birth had also tried to wipe out wild lagomorphs (although they were not an introduced species there), with the myxomatosis virus. We encountered an ailing rabbit on a drive through country lanes and after ‘rescuing’
it my Uncle Ken had to dispatch it with a resounding ‘thunk’ of his shovel.
