Scientists Have a Way to Wipe Out Australia's Rabbits — But Is It Safe?

Australia's rabbits are more dangerous than you think. On 22 October 2026, CSIRO said the humble rabbit might be Australia's worst introduced species, worse than the fox or the feral cat. Rabbits put 322 threatened species at risk, and this year their numbers are surging from the Riverina to Hobart. The viruses that held them down for decades are losing strength, and funding for national rabbit biocontrol ran out in 2022. But taking rabbits away has a cost too. When calicivirus escaped from Wardang Island in 1995, the desert came back to life, wedge-tailed eagles turned to other prey and the rare plains-wanderer ended up on the menu. In this Australian wildlife documentary we look at why rabbit numbers are surging again, what myxomatosis and calicivirus did for native mammals and farmers, how rabbits built up resistance, what happened to feral cats at Arid Recovery when the rabbits went, and what's coming next: a new virus and a gene drive from the University of Melbourne. Is removing rabbits worse than leaving them? Subscribe for more Australian animals, invasive species, dangerous wildlife and the hidden stories of wild Australia. Where are you watching from? And if a gene drive is ever ready, should Australia use it on its rabbits? Tell us in the comments. #Australia #Rabbits #AustralianWildlife #InvasiveSpecies #Calicivirus #Outback #wildlife Credits (cropped/resized; no endorsement). i = inaturalist.org/photos/ID, o = inaturalist.org/observations/ID, c = commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=ID, w = w.wiki/ID. Licences: creativecommons.org/licenses CC BY 4.0: ian_mcallan i721696964 i711929775 i757034090 i654097860 i560212077 i368331321 i691817675 i576244515 i756622137; Donna Belder i375468316; Rolf Lawrenz i23947505; Amar Bharathy i302692271; Boyd Essex w fnwU; Hugo Innes i335301380; Donald Hobern i342150268; Caleb Catto i472786513; James H i437825278 i485050761; Nathan Ruser i327320370 i265208385 i465412294; graeme lunt i101856288 i291889431; Thomas Jaeger i469609737 i408858099 i353047313; Sid Miller i727405399; Lek Khauv i19849678; Austen Armstrong i740919953; Liam Sultana i592477793; Mark Kriedemann i143716169; Kym Nicolson i119107756; Andrew Allen i49244687 i150424898; nevwright i45778836; PampaSorro i629148169; timboucher i754836878; Patrick Connolly i456308377; Sofia Zvolanek i718906410 i755295635; Thomas Mesaglio i238441958; Zac Lucarelli i724952254; Donald Davesne i487571935; David Gregory & Debbie Marshall w fnwW; Cal Wood i28314954; Terra Occ i31950023; Wellcome Library, London (Wellcome Images) c35953937; Chris Lindorff i73931752; Bracteantha c166687360; Wairambar Rainforest i458332019; A.J. Anderson o87267232; Aalbert Rebergen o335919999; Heidi Kleinert, © State of Victoria (DELWP) 2021, Landcare Victoria Magazine 81; © State of NSW through Local Land Services 2024, Murray LLS RSPAMP (current information: nsw.gov.au); papers: Ramsey et al. doi:10.3390/v15051159; Taggart et al. doi:10.1111/csp2.12639; Birand et al. doi:10.3897/neobiota.74.82394; Cooke, Taggart & Patel doi:10.1017/S0950268823001668; Ulhaq et al. doi:10.3390/rs13163276 CC BY 3.0: Willem van Aken, CSIRO w fnwZ; Liz Poon, CSIRO w fnwb c35443112 c35438537; John Coppi, CSIRO w fnvW, CSIRO ScienceImage 4026; CSIRO c35444890; Electron Microscopy Unit AAHL, CSIRO c35457756; Archives, CSIRO, CSIRO ScienceImage 2232; Carl Davies, CSIRO, CSIRO ScienceImage 3648 CC BY 2.0: Owen Allen w fnwN; Brenden Ashton w fnwP; Tatyana Kozlova w fnwQ; Rene Schwietzke w fnwg; vijay chennupati w fnwi; Tim Bawden w fnwq c69796452 c69113751; Brisbane City Council c23615678; SANTIVALLADOLID c23272048 Other: © Government of South Australia 2020, SCHolar44 (CC0 overlay) c90953530; Invasive Animals CRC Annual Report 2016–17, reproduced by permission; © Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry 2026, joint media release (Collins & Ayres); Conservation Biology cover Dec 2022, SCB/USFWS, public domain; Hall RN et al. 2015, Emerg Infect Dis, doi:10.3201/eid2112.151210, public domain; contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026; original diagrams, sources cited in graphics.