History
It all started in the year of 1990 when the seed of RabbitBusters was born. Daniel Watt, a then 12 year old city boy who suddenly found himself living in the bush. Never a big one for sport, Daniel found himself with a lot of spare time and not a lot of kids around. A friends father introduced him to his first ferret and catching rabbits, and what an eye opener! That’s it, he was instantly addicted to the rumble of underground mutton, then bang out in the purse net is a Rabbit!
From this point Daniel had to have ferrets, so he talked his parents into getting some, and then every chance he got he was out hunting with a carry box, a dozen nets and his little Jack Russell x Foxie.
Fast forward a few years to his mid-twenties and Daniel was working boring jobs, wishing he could catch rabbits for a living and he thought there had to be a way… Daniel started to learn new methods and picked the brain of anyone that could teach him things that he didn’t know so he could improve and be the best at what he did. As it got bigger and started to take up most of his spare time, he decided to make the move to make RabbitBusters his full time job and has not looked back. Now, he has a dedicated team of dogs, ferrets, and a few good men that help him out in the war on Rabbits.
A brief history of the rabbit in Australia
- 1859 : 24 Wild rabbits released at Barwon Park by Thomas Austin, Rabbits spread across Australia at about 130km per year
- 1881: some farms were abandoned because of rabbits. Rabbit control: poisoning (strychnine, phosphorus, arsenic)
- 1900’s: a billion rabbits
- 1920's: The Great Barrier fences (11,321klm)
- 1926: 10 billion rabbits in Australia
- 1920’s – 1930’s : Rodier & Coleman Phillips methods (rabbit numbers unchanged)
- 1930’s fumigation: calcium cyanide, sulphur dioxide
- 1940’s – 1950’s : may methods applied ad hoc.
- 1944: 103,000,000 million rabbit skins and carcasses exported
- 1950: about 1800 million rabbits in Australia
- 1952 – 1954 Myxomatosis killed 99.8 % of rabbits, In some areas rabbit numbers greatly reduced
- 1955/56: 24 million rabbit skins exported (the rabbit was back!)
- 1960’s : broad scale 1080 poisoning (Victoria)
- 1969-1990: rabbits are still spreading into new areas and re-colonising old sites
- 1990: rabbit population about 600 million (60 million Victoria)
- 1996-1999: Rabbit Calicivirus Disease (RCD) rabbits reduced by 50% in some arid areas
- 1996-1998: RCD and integrated rabbit control reduces rabbits by about 30% in Victoria
- 1998-1999: RCD and integrated rabbit control used together in large-scale group campaigns has seen some areas aiming to become rabbit free.