TIME
Australia’s rabbit eats a quarter of the country’s pasturage. Cattlemen have tried poison, fences, shot & shell—all without success. Last week a new weapon promised to cut the rabbit down to size.
The weapon: a peculiar disease called myxomatosis, which is harmless to humans and other animals, deadly to rabbits. Scientists launched a myxomatosis epidemic by catching 500 rabbits, giving them the needle, turning them loose. Since a rabbit does not die until ten or twelve days after being infected, it has plenty of time to pass the disease around. In Asia’s “Year of the Rabbit” (see WAR IN ASIA) hordes of Australian rabbits had already been myxomatosized.
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