Australia is suffering from an overabundance of its most iconic animal, the kangaroo.
Populations of kangaroos in some areas can reach very high densities because of access to good quality food, permanent water, and a lack of predators. In over-populated areas, kangaroos can cause damage to farmland, property and habitat, pose a risk to human safety, and can suffer starvation from over-grazing.
“Rabbits, a plant root disease and feral pigs are the top three pest species impacting Australia's threatened species,” Mr Kearney said. “Rabbits are our most destructive invasive species, impacting over 300 threatened species. In contrast, cats are a major threat to about 123 threatened species, and foxes, 95.
Dingoes probably arrived in Australia between 4,600 and 5,400 years ago, long after the first humans, spread rapidly across the continent and probably contributed to the extinction of even more native species such as the Thylacine and Tasmanian devil.
Competition and land degradation by rabbits is listed as a key threatening process in Australia4. Rabbits can cause damage by: overgrazing native and sown pastures, leading to loss of plant biodiversity and reduced crop yields.
In the 1950s, the government turned to biocontrol. They released rabbits infected with myxoma—a rabbit-specific virus—into southeastern Australia. The myxoma virus was the first ever virus to be purposefully introduced to the wild to eradicate an animal.
Rabbits were introduced to Australia in the 1800s by European settlers. Free from diseases and facing relatively few predators in a modified environment, the wild populations grew rapidly.
Australia's largest extant predator is the dingo C. lupus dingo. There is observational evidence that where dingoes are locally abundant, foxes and cats are rare (Newsome 2001; Glen & Dickman 2005). Dingoes kill these smaller predators, and foxes evidently fear and avoid dingoes (O'Neill 2002; Mitchell & Banks 2005).
The Dingo is Australia's largest terrestrial carnivore, though it occasionally eats plants and fruits. They're opportunistic hunters, but will also scavenge food. The bulk of their diet is made up of meat: they eat kangaroos, wallabies, feral pigs, wombats, small mammals (rabbits, rodents), birds and lizards.
Flies are the most common and dirtiest of the restaurant pests. These small bugs can carry billions of harmful microorganisms, including E. coli and Salmonella, which can lead to serious illnesses in humans.
The combination of warm climates and moisture provides the perfect prerequisites for an abundance of food year-round. This constant access to nourishment has given many species of insects the ability to grow and flourish over years of development.
A group of kangaroos (usually ten or more roos) is known as a mob, troop, or court.
Australia is home to 25 million people and an estimated 50 million kangaroos, which some Aussies call “plague proportions.”
Kangaroo is a gamey meat, and some foodies even prefer it to lamb and steak for its tenderness and taste. It tends to be a stronger flavour than beef or lamb, and even though it is a very lean meat, it's not tough like venison can sometimes be.
Australia's apex predator, the dingo (Canis dingo) influences the abundance and behaviour of herbivorous prey and mesopredators in arid ecosystems. The dingoes' ecological role is uncertain in more productive forested environments of eastern Australia.
There are wild big cats in Australia
Large (sometimes black) feral dogs and dingoes, foxes and even wallabies explain some 'big cats' sightings, but not all of them. Australian big cats aren't just represented by eyewitness accounts and hazy photos, but by some pretty good photos, and also by a number of dead bodies.
Luckily, the lion is an apex predator, meaning it can hunt most animals in its habitat. It also cannot be hunted by animals within its habitat. This is what makes it 'the king of the jungle. ' In terms of animals causing human deaths, the lion is probably the most dangerous apex predator.
More than 80% of our plants, mammals, reptiles and frogs are unique to Australia and are found nowhere else in the world. Some of our Australian animals are very well known like kangaroos, dingos, wallabies and wombats and of course the koala, platypus and echidna.
Eating wild rabbit
Despite this, the vast majority of rabbits sold as meat products in Australia come from farmed rabbits (which are often raised in cages in much the same way as battery hens (see below).
In Australia's War against Rabbits, Brian Cooke details the emergence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD) in Asia and Europe and subsequent efforts to introduce RHD virus into Australia and New Zealand for rabbit control in the 1990s.
The Bill, however, was passed and became law as "The Rabbit Act of 1880" (Vol. XXXI (31), 1880, Queensland Parliamentary Debates) ; it forbade the keeping, introducing, or breeding of rabbits.
Why are they a pest? Rabbits are one of Australia's most destructive pest animals. They have a significant negative and costly impact on agriculture through overgrazing and they endanger many threatened plant species and ecological communities.
Wild rabbits are not native to Australia and are considered an invasive species. Farmers say the animals multiply quickly and destroy their crops and land, which can lead to massive soil erosion and other environmental issues.