Answer:
1. Australia, except in the northernmost areas.
2. Rabbits were first introduced to Australia by the First Fleet in 1788. They were bred as food animals, probably in cages. ... However, by 1827 in Tasmania, a newspaper article noted "...the common rabbit is becoming so numerous throughout the colony, that they are running about on some large estates by thousands.
3. 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.
4. Competition and land degradation by rabbits is listed as a key threatening process in Australia. Rabbits can cause damage by overgrazing native and sown pastures, leading to loss of plant biodiversity and reduced crop yields.
5. Rabbits are not native to Australia and affect primary production and native ecosystems.
Their impact on primary industries includes:
Lost production (crops, pastures, and revegetation, horticultural or forestry seedlings),
Control costs, and
Soil erosion, and associated impacts on infrastructure and waters.
Their impact on native ecosystems includes:
Competition for food and shelter,
Selective grazing of preferred plant species, resulting in low or nil recruitment and subsequent ecological change,
Maintaining fox and feral cat populations, resulting in increased predation of native animals and contributing to the extinction of some species,
Soil erosion, and associated impacts on vegetation, wetlands and watercourses, and
Off-target harm from rabbit control measures such as baiting and fumigation.
6.Conventional and biological controls have been used in Australia to eradicate rabbits. Conventional controls include destroying rabbit burrows with poison and fire. "Using poison, deep ploughing and then fuming burrows was highly cost effective [in] reducing rabbit numbers," says Mutze.
