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Eradication of Rabbits, Cats and Foxes
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Few animals have less of a reason to
completely disappear from the face of the earth forever than the Bilby. Same
goes for his brethren, the Woylie, the Eastern Quoll and the Quenda.
Yet the Lesser Bilby has already become extinct,
leaving its cousin the Greater Bilby behind, but in numbers far too
small for us to know how his story will end.
Typically, animal populations diminish due to
the value of their body parts (feathers, horns, gall bladders, blubber) or,
equally likely, due to the desire of man to occupy their habitat. (Blame
the complete and total loss of the California Grizzly Bear on this latter
cause.) But again, the Bilby and his mates have no such complaints.
No one yet has walked the red carpet in a full length Bilby fur coat. And
there are yet tens of thousands of hectares of prime Bilby habitat still
uninhabited by man.
Yes, we fully recognize that man’s impact
extends far beyond the city limits, but even so we are not talking here about
losing the occasional Bilby family to, say, cows that crush them to death in
their dens. No, if the Greater Bilby goes the way of his extinct relative it
will be due completely and solely to three horribly efficient “introduced”
killers, namely rabbits, cats and foxes.
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Yes; “Oh my!” indeed…….!
The effects of the presence of these three killers on the
Bilby are simple, straight forward and deadly. Rabbits directly compete
with Bilbies when in comes to consuming shared food sources, but Bilbies
cannot compete with rabbits when it comes to breeding, or surviving cat
and fox attacks. Bilbies bear their young only two at a time compared to
a rabbit’s dozen or so. And when it comes to predator attacks rabbits
(being natural born prey) are somewhat equipped to “see and avoid”.
Bilbies never knew of any predators prior to the introduction of cats and
foxes to Australia. And while a fox might choose to kill a rabbit over a
Bilby from time to time the much smaller cat generally can only choose to
playfully torture Bilbies to death, leaving the rabbit free to continue
increasing its numerical advantage over the Bilby. It is really easy to
see then why the Bilby, even with all the room in the world to survive,
has all but disappeared instead. Competing for food and habitat with the
larger, far more prolific rabbit, while being ill-equipped to handle
direct attacks by cats and foxes, has left our furry friend with little
choice but to say good-bye. And very quickly, too. Unless…..
Unless, that is, man reverses the mistakes he made starting
some two hundred years ago. Neither the fox, nor the cat, nor the
rabbit has any place in Australia. If they were each not here
already nobody in their right mind would suggest introducing them now.
Getting rid of all of the foxes and cats in Australia might prove a
daunting task, but it would certainly be worth an honest effort.
Certainly, the eradication of both foxes and feral cats has already begun
in earnest, and there has been little outcry against it. What still
needs to be done, however, is to stop the “domestic cat breeding program”.
After all, it is of little difference to the Bilby whether it is killed by
a feral cat or someone’s pet out for its midnight hunt. No more cats
should be able to be brought into or bred within Australia, and the ones
that are currently kept here as pets should be sterilized, made to wear
bells, and kept either in-doors (at the very least at night, when most
native animals are active), restricted to back-yard runs and/or kept on
leads. Expect some outcry against the demise of the domestic cat,
but likely not much of it coming from true Australians, whether
man or beast.
Again, we may never be
able to completely eradicate all the rabbits in Australia, but with the
cat and the fox once again unknown to our shores the Bilby, and all the
other small, furry native creatures like him, would at least begin to have
a fair go when competing for food and habitat.
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