Don’t Mess with Mum: Nature Keeps Score

 

 

I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals — right next to the mashed potatoes.”

— Sarah Palin, 2008. (Yes, it’s been 18 years.)

1859: Thomas Austin had a similar fondness -  for rabbits. Unfortunately, there weren't any to hunt in the State of Victoria.

Where?

Southeastern Australia. Down Under. The other side of the world, where Mother is Mum, not Mom — too American, you know. Aussies like to tease us, but they'll still put a steak on the barbie for you or so they say.

Thomas Austin was a self-appointed champion of the new and improved. A man who gave little thought — really , none at all — to the delicate balance of tooth and nail, root and rain, fire and frost. Left versus Right. Democrats versus Republicans (although there weren't any of those down there, either).

With time on his hands, money, and just enough knowledge to be dangerous—Thomas Austin knows exactly what to do.

Bring in some rabbits.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tom’s brother Bill sent him 24.

Australia turned out to be a paradise for the two dozen wild English rabbits—plenty of food, mild winters, and few natural predators. They multiplied – you know – like rabbits - nibbling  across the “Bush”  at nearly 80 sq. miles a year. Within decades, millions became billions. Vegetation vanished, topsoil eroded, native species were pushed aside, and farmland suffered. It was an ecological catastrophe.

Did Thomas Austin take the hit (blame)?

Nope – well not until later.

Thomas Austin – was not  a Snidely Whiplash - the mustache-twirling villain from the Dudley Do-Right segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. He's the one famous for wearing a top hat, a cape, a handlebar mustache, and constantly tying damsels (hard to find them these days) in distress (like Nell Fenwick) to a railroad track  Remember? 

In fact, at the time he released the rabbits in 1859, he was widely praised by his peers in the Acclimatization Society of Victoria for trying to "improve" the local environment by introducing familiar European game. “Good Show Old Man” and all of that. Members claimed  he had  performed a good deed helping to make Australia feel more like home sweet home, the UK.?

Today, Thomas Austin is considered an Aussie  poster boy for why tinkering with Mother Nature when you don’t know what you’re doing is a very bad idea.

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.*

*Ted Liskowski….Mr. “L”… taught me HS chemistry, RIP

 

So, did Austin eventually get to do much rabbit hunting you ask, or want to ?

No, he fell into poor health and died at age 56.

He had just finished building his grand 42-room mansion at Barwon Park earlier the year he died, but he only got to live in it for a few months. Diabetes.

 

By the early 20th century, the rabbit problem had outgrown simple solutions. Fences stretched for miles. Poisons were deployed. Nothing worked for long. The rabbits always came back. Not until the introduction of Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV) in the 1990s did the population sharply decline—and even then, only temporarily. Resistance developed

Today, billions still roam Australia, and they remain the country’s most destructive invasive species.

Until I met Wayne, Australia was little more to me than Crocodile Dundee, dangerous wildlife, and a few colorful sayings.

That’s what I thought until I stared at the stuffed kangaroo in Wayne’s office.

 

“That’s a small one—an Eastern Grey ” Wayne said. “About 1.5 meters… sorry—around four feet. The big boys? Five, six feet tall. Two hundred pounds. And they box.”

That got my attention.

 

Wayne was an attorney. We had just finished discussing a legal matter when I noticed the stuffed kangaroo in his office.

”Vacation souvenir?”    “In a way, yes,” came Wayne’s reply. I was on holiday when I saw the wanted poster.”

One of the proposed solutions to Australia’s rabbit problem was increased hunting. Locals had little time for it, so the call came out and hunters from New Zealand, the UK and the US joined in the hunt.

 

Then in his early twenties, Wayne   answered the request for help from a land as vast as it is forgiving. Where distance is not measured in miles, but in hours, and water—whether from rivers, rainfall, or hidden underground—is never something you could count on. It was a place that demanded self-reliance. If something went wrong, there was no one to call. You handled it yourself.

Sometimes with a gun.

“I wasn’t exactly Paladin or Josh Randall,” Wayne told me with a grin, “but close enough.”

It sounded like the American frontier—dust, danger, and men who lived by their wits and their aim.

But this “Wild West” wasn’t in America.

It was Australia, in the 1960s.

 

Wayne had come on vacation, but it became “Booking Yeah” but with firearms. Wayne took a job as a hired gun. We worked in small teams,” Wayne said. “Competition was fierce. And if you weren’t careful, someone might steal your pelts or horses.”

The work was hard, the pay uncertain, and the danger very real. He spoke of tense, sometimes violent confrontations in remote stretches of the Outback—places where law and order were more suggestion than reality.

 

“At night, we kept a big fire going,” he said. “Two men on guard at all times, four-hour shifts. Nobody slept through a watch. We all carried sidearms, and there was always a shotgun or rifle within reach. It wasn’t optional.”

He paused, then added with a slight smile, “There were outlaws on the Outback.”

 

Bounty hunting never really had a chance," Wayne said. "Rabbits bred faster than hunters could kill them. Vast areas were never touched, and some hunters cheated the bounty system. In the end, it was just another Band-Aid on a wound that refused to heal."

He shrugged.

"Nature keeps score.

 

Epilogue

 

As I was leaving Wayne's office, I paused in front of a painting hanging on the wall. It looked like it may have been a snake.

"Aboriginal dot painting," Wayne said. "The dots aren't just decoration. They tell stories—tracks, waterholes, journeys, give advice. This one was painted by Arthur, an Indigenous Australian who hunted rabbits with me years ago. We became good friends."

 

Wayne studied the painting for a moment.

Nature gives us warnings. We just don't always pay attention."

"Arthur always said the winding shape was like those S-curve signs on country roads. Once you're in the bend... it's already too late. It's telling you to adjust your course early.

Then, with a laugh, he added,

"And to do  one more thing..."

“What?”

"Avoid stepping on that snake."