Rabbit-free Research Opportunity

The TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve at Koonamore is the longest-running vegetation monitoring site of its kind in Australia – and site data is now readily available to researchers. The site has not been grazed by sheep for over 50 years, and has been rabbit-free for over 40 yrs – so there is a wealth of […]

Diverse genetics indicates diverse origins

Australia’s feral rabbits fall into three primary genetic lineages, with three other highly localised ones, according to a recently published research paper. The results suggest the rabbits originated from different introductions across the country, rather than a single site. The research, assisted in part by funding from the Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia, examined the […]

Turretfield comes up trumps

‘Rabbit histories’, tracking the mortality of over 4,000 rabbits, are now available from a long-term monitoring site at Turretfield Research Centre in South Australia. For twenty years, rabbit populations on the property have been routinely estimated and sampled, providing data that is proving useful on many fronts.Blood and tissue samples provide evidence of the incidence […]

Myxo helps Calici virus

Wild rabbits exposed to Myxomatosis are more susceptible to RHDV (Calici virus), compared to rabbits without prior exposure. That is the conclusion of researchers looking at eighteen years of data from a continuously monitored site at Turretfield, South Australia. Dr Louise Barnett from Flinders University presented the findings at a recent annual general meeting of […]

RFA Chairman’s Update

Fresh insights into all things RFA are available in the Chairman’s Reports, from May and August, 2017.

10 Billion Rabbits

Author of ‘Those Wild Rabbits’, Bruce Munday, is interviewed on the ABC Radio’s ‘Conversations’. Listen to the ABC interview for some great yarns about bunnies and their control.

90 Years & Still Changing. RFA helps Koonamore.

The Koonamore vegetation monitoring reserve shows rabbit control is essential for the regeneration of many tree and shrub seedlings – and a donation from RFA is helping with re-fencing. Thanks to funding support from RFA and others, Koonamore – the longest running vegetation monitoring project in Australia – has been able to upgrade part of […]

Additional rabbit bio-control feasibility to be studied.

Plans are afoot to investigate the potential to add two parasites to the armoury in the battle against wild rabbits. Eimeria intestinalis and Eimeria flavescens are infectious rabbit parasites that have been detected in south west WA, but not anywhere else on mainland Australia. If verified this may be due to a unique rabbit introduction […]

Enlisting flies to track the spread of RHDV

RFA has funded a novel project to help track the spread of rabbit viruses across Australia. It is now accepted that flies are a vector for the transmission of RHDV, thanks in part to former research by Amy Ianella which was also supported by RFA. Research has also shown that flies could be used as […]

How the bunny-rabbit shaped Australia

Bruce Munday, author of RFA supported book ‘Those Wild Rabbits’, has been interviewed on ABC Radio National by Phillip Adams. To hear the interview online, visit the Radio National Late Night Live website.