The news about the hare disaster in Australia has made netizens "anxious".
Australia's hare seems to be the overlord in this land, and there is no creature that can compete with it, and it has staged a number of "human rabbit wars", but every time Australia is defeated.
This makes people wonder, rabbit is obviously a delicacy, why not eat it in Australia?
Also, why are Australian rabbits so rampant?
Friends who are more familiar with world history must know that Australia was once a British colony and was taken away from its home by the British for many years.
And these hare overlords, who made Australia feel anxious, came to Australia during that period and left behind troubles.
In 1788, the first rabbit appeared on Australian soil, and his owner was a British colonist, who brought the rabbit here to be kept as a pet.
These rabbits are relatively well-behaved, have been active on the east coast, and are all kept in captivity, so they are safe.
However, some hobble haper owners will keep a few rabbits in their manor to satisfy their hunting interests. These rabbits have gone from simply keeping pets in captivity to being the protagonists of hunting and playing.
These rabbits have been domesticated by humans, have a docile personality, are of moderate size, and do not usually run around.
What really brought disaster to Australia was another species of rabbit, commonly known as the hare.
In 1859, on a farm in Australia, Thomas Os, a farmer, received a special gift of 24 hares from England.
It made him very happy.
Thomas loves to hunt when he has nothing to do, but these domesticated rabbits in Australia, which have been domesticated for more than half a century, do not bring more hunting excitement in terms of agility or speed.
These hares are larger, fast-moving, and quick-reflexing, just what Thomas needs to hunt.
But Thomas never expected that his small hobby would bring a huge ecological destruction to Australia.
Hunting fanatics like Thomas are not uncommon in Australia and have even become a popular form of entertainment.
As a result, some people see business opportunities and are able to provide more hares to hunt, which means they can make more money. Driven by monetary interests, Australians did not think about the consequences of raising hares, but instead contributed to the situation by helping hares breed and reproduce.
If we had to pick out some of nature's ruthless "breeding machines", rabbits would be among them.
The physiology of rabbits is very unique, the gestation cycle is very short, and it can give birth to twelve times a year, giving birth to at least four cubs per litter.
In addition to being able to sell to people for hunting accidents, rabbit fur is not only beautiful but also warm when made into clothes, so the prospect of getting rich by raising rabbits is very good.
Until this time, people did not realize that a quiet crisis was coming.
What kind of crisis do these rabbits bring to Australians, and what are they doing to combat it?
If these human-bred rabbits stay in the breeding farm honestly, then it is absolutely impossible to cause damage to the local ecological environment. Because this is a closed loop of feeding, within a fixed land range, they get the food that a fixed human put in, no matter how you look at it, it will not cause a crisis.
But don't forget, rabbits are very similar animals to mice, especially when it comes to burrowing.
Don't look at the little rabbit is usually very docile, but there is a saying in China, "the rabbit will bite when it is in a hurry".
These hares are kept in captivity by some people, but in order to maintain their wild nature, the breeding grounds are large, so they are still free-range.
At the same time, the hares and local rabbits are crossbred to produce the next generation with the advantages of both. Not only is it flexible, but it's also more adaptable.
Another point to mention is that rabbits are not "gentlemen" and can breed "close relatives".
So in just a few years, these rabbits that have been specially bred by people have also grown rapidly at an unexpected speed.
It was at this time that people felt the crisis for the first time, because it was not just the people who kept them, and it seemed that these rabbits could be seen everywhere.
That's weird! Where did the rabbit come from?
After investigation, people found that these rabbits bit through the fence or drilled holes in the ground, and one by one they successfully "escaped".
These rabbits are not only grassy, but also bushes and tree bark.
Australia's climate and vegetation environment provide a natural living environment for rabbits, they can eat well, and the climate is also suitable for survival.
For the first time, the Australians looked at the light of the earth, and then at the other creatures affected by the lack of food, as well as the originally peaceful biological chain, and for the first time, they felt disgusted with this cute little cute thing.
Destroy them! They must be destroyed! Otherwise, Australia is in danger!
There are so many examples of alien species that have caused disturbance to Australia's ecology, so why is the rabbit disaster one of the worst ecological disasters?
Although Australia has a short history, this continent has a long history. Because the local natural conditions are relatively homogeneous, the evolution of species has slowed down slightly compared with other continents.
Many of the ancient species that have gone extinct on other major roads can still be found in Australia.
Therefore, when a large number of rabbits appear on Australian soil, it will cause dimensionality reduction to the native flora and fauna, and destroy the original stability.
To put it simply, it is like a class in a grade where the progress is the slowest, and their teaching is independent and their lesson plan is arranged separately.
At this time, an excellent teacher was transferred from another class, and when he came to the class, he would use a method of solving problems that required more knowledge. While it's faster and more efficient, it's very difficult for these kids to adapt to.
The original stable learning rhythm was broken, and at the same time, it was impossible to keep up with the teacher's rhythm, and even the original learning method had to be abandoned, and the performance of the whole class would be worse.
This teacher is an important role in destabilizing the relationship, and his appearance breaks the original tranquility, and even makes the class a mess.
Australia's slower evolutionary process is the slower class.
And this teacher is the hare that breaks the tranquility.
How much does a rabbit eat?
Seven to ten rabbits eat as much grass and vegetation as a sheep every day.
These rampant hares rob other Australian creatures of food, especially in times of drought, when they sweep away the pasture that belonged to cattle and sheep, and the herders have nothing to do with them.
Under the influence of hares, the local livestock industry was severely affected, and production fell sharply.
It is time to deal with the rabbit plague.
The rabbits spread at a rate of 100 kilometers every year in order to get more abundant food. So in less than 50 years, there are rabbit tracks everywhere in Australia.
According to incomplete statistics, in 1926, Australia's rabbits had exceeded the 10 billion mark, resulting in a decline of about 60% in local animal husbandry, seriously disrupting the development of local agriculture and animal husbandry.
For these rabbits that everyone shouts and beats, what kind of solution has the local ** come up with?
The first method is more traditional and more primitive. Since there are so many rabbits, they must be killed, which is nothing more than hunting and poisoning.
But people ignore one thing, the reproduction rate of rabbits is inherently fast, especially on the basis of such a large base, the speed of human hunting cannot keep up with the speed of rabbit reproduction.
This approach has not yielded any results, and the rabbits in Australia are still rampant.
Moreover, rabbits are very flexible, not professional hunters, and are generally difficult to hunt. In this way, the labor cost and economic cost are very large.
The enemy of our enemy is our friend, and since we can't defeat the rabbit, let his enemy play!
Local** ferrets and weasels were introduced from England, and the hope of killing rabbits was placed on these two animals.
But when it came to practice, I found that this method has great drawbacks.
Europeans keep ferrets in captivity mainly to hunt rabbits and drive away mice, and many people keep ferrets as their own pets.
Ferrets generally inhabit forests or semi-woodlands close to water sources, mainly in coniferous, broad-leaved mixed forests and subarctic coniferous forests at altitudes of 800 to 1600 m.
Ferrets are animals that change their habitat depending on the climatic conditions, and when the mountains are covered by heavy snow in winter, the ferret will move the whole family to the mountain area in order to ensure that there is enough food. When the climate warms up, the ferret will return to the mountains.
Small and agile ferrets are the rabbit's natural enemies and have a good track record of both driving and hunting. At first, the Australians did control a wave of rabbit breeding and flooding by introducing ferrets.
But just one winter, people's good wishes were shattered.
Because ferrets are not suitable to survive in Australia at all, in the summer it is fine, but in the winter, Victoria's cold winter leaves the ferrets with nowhere to live, and many of them die.
What about weasels? This animal is not afraid of winter and adapts much better to the climate.
The weasel does survive in Australia and is a natural enemy of rabbits, but it is also a natural enemy of many poultry and livestock.
When people are concerned about how many rabbits the weasel can kill for them, the weasel has long targeted poultry and livestock.
So the end result is that while weasels have helped to eradicate many of the rampant hares, they have also caused damage to the poultry and livestock raised by other farmers, as well as other local animals.
In this human-rabbit war, the method of natural enemies to defeat the enemy has obviously failed again.
Will the Australian people give up? What did they think of?
The first time this human-rabbit war ushered in a turning point was in the 50s of the last century.
Scientists in Australia have introduced a completely new virus from abroad, the myxoma virus.
Its appearance has caused more than ninety percent of rabbits in Australia to die due to rapid infection.
At the same time, this virus is very targeted, only targeting rabbits, and other species do not harm at all.
The virus law allowed these unscrupulous hares to finally be honest, but just when the Australians thought that the battle was over, they did not know that all this had just begun, and the next confrontation was even more severe.
The number of rabbits has been drastically reduced, but the natural enemies of these rabbits have run out of food.
What to do? They target small animals, such as rabbit-eared bandicoots and pig's foot bandicoots.
As a result, the two creatures were even pushed to extinction.
At the same time, due to the sharp decline of hares, the original biological chain has also changed, which has once again had an impact on the ecology.
What's even more terrifying is that the virus failed to kill all the rabbits, and many hares survived.
Here I want to interject some medical common sense, which can make it easier for us to understand the thorniness of these rabbit problems.
Vaccines are one of the most effective ways for us humans to fight off the damage of the virus, but many people don't know how vaccines protect the human body.
The virus cannot survive on its own, so it needs a host.
When the host is infected, the virus will fission in the host, producing more virus and absorbing nutrients from the host's body.
Like the flu, it is a disease caused by the influenza virus.
Our sneezing and fever are actually the body's self-protection mechanism.
The purpose of sneezing is to expel the virus from the body and build a wall of defense.
Fever is because most viruses survive in cold temperatures, but not in high temperatures.
When the virus invades the human body, our brain gives instructions to use the body's high temperature to suppress the virus.
At the same time, our white blood cells and so on will also charge forward, killing the virus by engulfing it.
The so-called antibodies are the ability of human beings to fight viruses without the help of drugs.
Why do people who often take medicine and injections have poor resistance?
Because after the drug enters the human body, it will carry out an indiscriminate attack, not only killing the virus, but also killing our protective cells.
But if you don't take medicine, will the virus be destroyed?
Yes. People with strong resistance will devour and destroy the virus through their own efforts. Of course, in order to be able to recognize the virus in the future, the immune system will "take a picture of the virus" and wait until the next time it sees the virus, it will rush out and kill the other party as soon as possible, so as to achieve the purpose of protecting the human body from the invasion of the virus.
So how do we get antibodies?
The first is that after the human body is infected with the virus, it fights it through its own immunity. This is why some diseases will only occur once in a person's life, because the human body already has antibodies, and even if these viruses come to the human body, they cannot make waves.
The second and most effective way to defend against disease is to inject viruses that have been greatly weakened into the human body, and then let human cells kill these viruses and form antibodies.
The vaccines we get are actually these viruses that have been "educated", which are either attenuated or inactivated.
But what do these hares have to do with this knowledge?
Hare are mammals that react to viruses in a similar way to humans.
Although most of the hares died due to the virus, a small number of resistant rabbits survived. These rabbits have resistance in their bodies, and it is almost impossible for scientists to use viruses to eliminate them at this time.
Therefore, to this day, Australia has been worried about these hares, but still has not found the most suitable solution.
By 1990, the number of these rabbits had soared again, surpassing the 200 million mark.
Because Australia itself is rich in water and grass, whether it is the climate or geographical environment, it is the best habitat for rabbits. Not only are the rabbits becoming more and more numerous, but their body size is also gradually developing, and the weight of individual rabbits is huge, and even an adult can find it difficult to pick up such a rabbit.
Here is the Australian hare disaster, and here is the Chinese netizens who are puzzled.
Rabbits are a delicacy in China, with 500 million rabbits being served to the table every year. Especially in Sichuan, which likes to eat rabbit meat, there are 300 million rabbits a year.
In such a comparison, do you still think it is more than 200 million?
But why do Australians prefer to hunt rather than eat rabbits? If this is placed in China, it must be the gospel of many foodies.
It is important to mention here that different countries have completely different food cultures.
Looking at the whole world, it is difficult to find a second country where food is the sky. Even though people advocate Western food, they think that Western food is elegant and noble.
In fact, in terms of cooking technology and ingredient selection, it still has to be eaten by Chinese.
Even the most ordinary food can be used by Chinese people to make it more flavorful.
In fact, it's not that foreigners don't like to eat rabbit meat, but they don't know what to do at all.
Whether Chinese eat meat or vegetarian dishes, every household can set up a table of food for guests. A variety of cooking methods to allow people to enjoy the stimulation of taste buds.
But what about Westerners?
Cooking can be as simple as it can be, so if you really want to learn to make rabbit meat, you probably have to sign up for a Chinese chef class.
In addition, for Australians, the procedures for cooking rabbit meat are too cumbersome, and their labor costs are high. Coupled with the small local audience, it is difficult to achieve rabbit meat restaurants everywhere in Australia.
In general, even if Australians have the intention to eat such invasive species, they will not be able to eat as fast as they can reproduce. On the other hand, these hares may carry unknown viruses that can cause harm to humans or even outperform the epidemic, and for these reasons, the Australian people can only continue to look for other ways.