Those Wild Rabbits: How they shaped Australia by Bruce Munday

A century ago Australia was home to 10 billion rabbits, thriving in their adopted home. Storyteller Bruce Munday finds the rabbit saga irresistible – the naive hopes of the early settlers, the frustration, environmental damage, cost to agriculture, dreams shattered, and the lessons learned and ignored.

Those Wild Rabbits highlights not only the damage done but also Australia’s missed opportunities for real rabbit control. It recognises the bush’s paradoxical love affair with an animal that was at one time a significant rural industry and is still recalled with nostalgia. More importantly, it offers hope for a brighter future, making the case for continued research to drive the next rabbit-control miracle, because rabbit plagues of the past will become the future unless we capture the history and embrace the lessons.

Bruce Munday arrived in Australia just downstream from where Thomas Austin had introduced wild rabbits to the colonies 80 or so years earlier. During 42 years of farming in the Adelaide Hills, he and his wife Kristin have seen plenty of rabbits. Bruce has had a long history in Landcare, often in leadership roles, and a strong conviction that community action is the first line of environmental defence. With a PhD in physics and 20 years as communications consultant in agriculture and natural resource management, he has a keen understanding of the nexus between scientific research, government policy and community action. Telling Australia’s rabbit saga proved irresistible, particularly capturing recollections of old-timers who were so much a part of the tale.

Shortlisted for the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award
Awarded the Keain Medal for the South Australian Historical Book of the Year, 2017

Listen to Bruce Munday on The Adelaide Podcast

ISBN 9781743054574

$39.95

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