The rabbit plagues of Australia have produced many stories of properties and land being decimated under a wave of rabbits, eating everything they could reach: grasses, small trees, shrubs and causing the death of taller trees by ringbarking as far as they could stretch.

The 24 rabbits imported to Australia in the 1800s for game shooting quickly bred to plague proportions. In 1901 there was one such plague. The rabbits’ progress was tracked by newspapers of the day. Thousands upon thousands of rabbits demolished Western and Central West NSW.

Nothing halted the advancement of the colonies of rabbits. At the time there were no poisons readily accessible, and limited resources to conquer the threat.

After the 1946 rabbit plague, the Central West became a popular rabbit trapping region with millions of rabbits exported overseas for meat.

A rabbit eradication program also began with 10-80 poisoned carrots. Carrots were sliced up and poisoned before being loaded onto small aircraft to be distributed across regions. This program and the introduction of Myxomatosis effectively ended the rabbit plagues.