I stand by your stand by. Negative karma isn't a crime once in awhile (seems you get a 2nd nit in this thread on wordisms: 'once and awhile' is 'once in awhile')
I would even say that negative karma is never a crime, or even a bad thing. Just because an opinion isn't popular, doesn't mean one shouldn't voice it. (As long as it's not against the community guidelines or an actual crime)
This led me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Biologica..., which is fascinating: it turns out that Australia has been trying to eradicate rabbits with viruses for decades. Surprising, I guess, because of how scary the same thing for humans would be.
And the closing paragraph pointing out the possible unintended consequences:
"In southern Europe, the scarcity of rabbits threatens the conservation of predator species higher up the food chain that are endangered and depend on small-game such as rabbits. These include the Iberian lynx and the Iberian imperial eagle. For that reason biological warfare in Australia is a serious concern for conservation experts working in other parts of the world where the preservation of a viable rabbit population is problematic."
Because of this rabbits actually support invasive predators as well (foxes, cats, etc...)
The only real "native" predator it has is the dingo, but those too were introduced by humans (only they were introduced thousands of years ago so they've been naturalized to the environment).
>> ...were introduced by humans (only they were introduced thousands of years ago...
That is a systemic problem in conservation: where in the timeline do we say that the "natural" state existed? In Australia and similar countries we place that mark not at the point that humans arrived, but at the point white people showed up. I live in the pacific northwest where we do the same. This practice almost equates indigenous humans with animals, both being "natural" in that the do not negatively impact "their" environment. The reality is that native populations radically altered ecosystems, that any non-human state only ever existed in deep history.
On long-inhabited island nations (Japan, UK Australia etc) the predator issue is a big deal only because of human efforts. Each wiped out their large predators long ago. Japan should have tigers and bears. The UK should have wolf packs. Australia too should have its big predators, but they were wiped out long before Europeans arrive. So we call that "natural". Something as simple as setting a date is in reality a twisted conflation of race, religion and political histories.
> This practice almost equates indigenous humans with animals
I feel like you're introducing a racist element where there needn't be one.
The key factor to a species adapting to its environment is time, and the timeframe that European colonisers have been in Australia, America and similar nations is a tiny blip on an evolution scale timeline.
Yeah, the racist element is certainly seeing something that is not there. Drawing the line at invasive species or "naturalized" species is almost entirely biological...
The reason the dingo is fundamentally different than the rabbit (or the invasive predators that prey on them) is it's had several thousand (4,000-12,000) years to reach a form of ecological equilibrium. Not to imply that nature is naturally balanced, but only that it is not threatening the survival of other "native" species. That's not true of the rabbit, which is why it's an invasive species and the dingo is not.
Environmentalism wasn't as popular when the dingo was introduced... So there isn't much we can do about its initial impact to the ecosystem... So, yes, date does matters very much... It's not about race or religion or political history... It's actually very much about biology...
So if we let the rabbits run wild until another equilibrium, as the one that occurred after the dingo introduction, then that new equilibrium is the one we are then to protect? I'd argue that there has never been any sort of natural equilibrium so long as humans, any humans, have been active in an environment. We must pick which human arrival draws the line between natural an not. I'd go with the original arrival.
Yes, a new equilibrium would arise. And many species would likely go extinct. We can't protect the species that the dingo drove into extinction because they went extinct thousands of years ago... We can protect the ones that the rabbit is driving into extinction.... That's where we draw the line....
It's not that simple though, it's also about: does predator A hunt at times and in areas when/where prey 1 lives/acts? If not, then you get a Hawaiian Rats vs. Mongeese scenario.
Like so many invasive species that now run amuck on islands around the world, mongooses were intentionally introduced to Hawaii. Sugar cane farmers took their cue from Jamaican plantation owners who imported mongooses to control rat populations. In 1883 the mongooses were let loose in the fields, an approach that proved to be colossally uninformed. As it turns out, rats are nocturnal and mongooses are diurnal. The exotic predators never came in contact with their rodent prey, and native bird populations began crashing instead.
In addition Australia doesn't have many large predators that weren't introduced, except for reptiles. The most impressive of those, the saltwater crocodile, isn't exactly suited to hunt anything far from shore.
That's the entire point behind rabbits and also rat-species.
Nature favors two strategies. Simple, fast, often reproduction with quick-to-sexual-maturity where they can stand to lose many of the nest and keep spreading. Or, a few babies that take (relatively) forever to mature and need protected but once mature, are stronger and more intelligent.
Quality vs quantity. Both are viable strategies according to nature.
Turtles and tortoises sexually mature slowly and live for a very long time, but they also lay tons of eggs and don't invest anything on individual young.
the wikipedia article also states that they have a more varied diet than the native turtles and could be applying pressure on species that previously didnt have that predator like the mentioned frogs. In the same way that humans didnt go out and kill/eat most big predators, we just ate all their food first and they died that way
Rabbits are a scourge in Queensland. When I bought my Akubra hat at the Victoria market in Melbourne the vendor confidently told me it was the only good use for a rabbit. (the hats are rabbit felt).
Does any agency offer a bounty on rabbits? For example in some lakes in Colorado you can get a bounty for catching and killing non-native northern pike[1]. Does Australia have a similar system in place? There is lots of data about how much of a pest they are [2] but other than dogs and foxes I don't see a bounty program. Trappers decimated the American west of Beaver because they could sell the pelts, perhaps a market for rabbit pelts would be enough incentive to encourage trappers?
I actually watch a youtube channel of some Australian teenagers who show their hunting in the wild there. In one specific video they are hunting rabbits to eat, but they mention that they had to travel to a friend's land as the rabbits in their area are no longer edible due to the viruses introduced by the government[1]
The comment under the video was saying that the rabbits were suffering mutations, not that virus itself was dangerous. Also a couple of teenagers out in the field aren't running a rigourous set of experiments. The rabbits may be perfectly edible still but no longer palatable
Have wild rabbits been mostly dealt with in Queensland? Because if not, it's not obvious to me how a relatively tiny additional source of escaped/released pet rabbits would make a difference?
I've lived in Queensland my whole life and I've never seen a wild rabbit. I do a lot of country driving now and I see wild hares at night, but I'm not sure if they're a problem.
Oof. No, farming them for meat means breeding them which practically guarantees their escape into the wild as an invasive pest.
I could see the argument for keeping a fixed one as a pet because there's no risk if a fixed one escapes... But even then, that would still create cottage industry of breeding them, and that's bad.
This doesn't pertain to Australia, but if you have served in the peace corps(unless something has changed) rabbits used to be fairly popular animals to give people in third world counties. It produces lots of offspring(if you are lucky enough for them to breed) which is probably its biggest benefit.
Rabbits suck. I'm trying to find a good source, but it's well-known to outdoorsmen that a diet of rabbit alone is not sufficiently nutritious to sustain humans when compared to other meats.
Also, it's Australia. Rabbits got out of control because people had this hubris about managing them; they won't permit that mistake again.
A shame. For vegetarians/vegans they're one of the few pets that can be nice, social animals and don't have to eat meat. A pet would be fixed, so there's no risk of escape into the wild... But pets have to be bred so the risk is still there.
Maybe some system where rabbits could be certified as "imported fixed" and tagged as such? So only intact animals could be legally imported?
For non-vegetarians, it is also a shame, because rabbits are really delicious.
This makes me wonder: I saw no exemption in that article of owning rabbits for meat production, so does that mean that down under, there is no rabbit on any restaurant's menu?
Pretty sure I've eaten rabbit in a restaurant in Australia, but I am sure it was wild rabbit.
I remember as a child in Australia eating a lot of rabbit. My father would hunt them and Mum's speciality was curried rabbit. I used to love it.
They really are vermin in Australia. Ever time I see a rabbit in Europe I have an almost visceral desire to kill it. Growing up in rural Australia I've seen first hamd the damage they can do if left unchecked.
Importing animals of any type into Australia isn't easy since they don't have many of the diseases on other continents, nor would they likely ever approve this for non-native species.
Rabbits are a huge problem in regards to protecting the native marsupials.
Australia's attitude towards rabbits is completely different than areas where they're native because they are such pests.
> From Queensland's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries brochure Can I have a pet rabbit?,
> Why are pet rabbits illegal in Queensland?
> Rabbits are Australia's most destructive agricultural and environmental introduced animal pest, [...]
> Can I get a permit for a pet rabbit?
> A permit cannot be issued for keeping pet rabbits of any variety for any private purpose.
> A permit to keep domestic rabbits in Queensland can only be approved if the animal is being kept for an approved purpose:
> certain forms of public entertainment (e.g. magic show and circuses)
> scientific and research purposes
So you could be a magician OR a scientist