Herbivores are considered overabundant when they cause observable harm to a plant community. A framework for thinking about and recording overabundance is presented by John Morgan in a special issue of Ecological Management and Restoration. The focus of this work is on overabundant macropods (wallabies and kangaroos), but the concepts are equally relevant to understanding […]
Rabbits wrought untold damage to Australian landscapes, but rabbit bio-controls have been incredibly successful in triggering environmental recovery across massive areas of Australia.
Nearly 4,000 blood samples from rabbits across Australia help explain the spread of RHDV2
Biological controls have been the only effective measure to suppress European wild rabbits across Australia to date, providing opportunities for subsequent control through physical measures like ripping and baiting. However the virulence of bio-controls declines over time as the control agent and rabbits evolve, so a ‘pipeline’ of new control agents is necessary to avoid […]
Lowering rabbit numbers helps control cats, and is an essential part of wildlife recovery programs.
First there was myxomatosis, then RHDV, but what is next? Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) are funding CSIRO to search for the next potential rabbit bio-control for Australia, according to a recent announcement from the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions (CISS). The $7.7 million project aims to assess rabbit viruses from south America as potential […]
Invasive species are credited with reducing global GDP by 5% (see the article by Dropulich), but it is difficult to get a real handle on the losses they cause. Financial losses are one thing – it is even harder to measure and value environmental losses. As an example of the latter, a recent paper by […]
Medical doctor and scientist, Dame Jean Macnamara, is credited with making Myxomatosis the great success story of biological control and applied science that it is. It wouldn’t have happened without her perseverance, and now the ABC is sharing her story, that of others who also worked to establish Myxomatosis, and the success that followed. It […]
Proposals to advance pest control solutions, improve existing control methods, or develop ‘farm ready’ control tools are being sought by the Australian Government. $13 million is available through the Advancing Pest Animal and Weed Control Solutions Competitive Grant Round, which is part of the Australian Government’s Established Pest Animal and Weed Management Pipeline. Organizations that […]
Long term monitoring on Macquarie Island has shown that when rabbit populations were high the probability of albatross breeding dropped by one to two thirds. The studies also revealed a web of interactions between cats, rabbits, vegetation and albatrosses. Data collected between 1995 and 2014 showed that rabbit numbers increased when feral cats were removed […]