When the Ground Came Alive: Australia’s Endless Rabbit War

The summer heat shimmered above the dusty plains of Victoria when William Cooper first heard the sound. At first, it was faint—like a distant breeze stirring dry grass. But as he stepped onto the verandah, the sound grew, a low, restless murmur that seemed to roll closer with every heartbeat. He squinted toward the horizon and froze.

The earth was moving.

A carpet of gray-brown shapes surged toward his wheat fields—thousands upon thousands, ears twitching, eyes glinting in the fading light. Their bodies rippled like water across the soil, spilling over fences as though they weren’t there. Somewhere beneath that living tide, William’s crops—his family’s winter survival—were vanishing, swallowed without a trace.

"God help us," he whispered, though no one could hear him over the rustle of countless paws.

It Began With Just 24 Rabbits

It had all begun just over two decades earlier, in 1859. English settler Thomas Austin, longing for the gentle hills and damp, green mornings of his homeland, had ordered twenty-four wild rabbits to his estate in Winchelsea, Victoria. He believed a few hunts would make the place feel like home.

But Australia was not England. There were no cold winters to check their breeding, no foxes, stoats, or weasels to keep their numbers down. In this wide, sunburnt land, grass grew almost year-round, and the rabbits multiplied with unstoppable vigor. Within a decade, they had crossed the borders of Victoria, spreading through New South Wales and Queensland like a plague on four legs.

The Plague That Devoured the Land

By the 1890s, the numbers were staggering. Some estimates claimed that Australia’s rabbit population had soared past 200 million, each capable of producing more than fifty offspring in a single year. They chewed through crops, stripped pastures bare, and left eroded soil that turned to dust in the wind. Sheep starved on lands where grass once grew waist-high, and desperate farmers abandoned properties that had been in their families for generations.

The newspapers of the day tried to capture the horror. “It was as if the very ground had sprouted life and moved,” wrote one reporter in 1892. Others spoke of “a living carpet” rolling over the hills, leaving devastation in its wake.

The Great Fence of Steel and Hope

The government’s response was as monumental as the problem. In 1901, work began on what would become the world’s longest fence—over 1,800 kilometers of wire stretching from the coast of Western Australia to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert. Known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, it was meant to halt the eastern invasion before it consumed the west.

Life along the fence was lonely and brutal. Fence-riders patrolled on horseback, mending wire in blistering heat and freezing nights. One worker, James “Red” Mallory, wrote to his sister: “Sometimes I don’t see another man for a week. But the rabbits—they’re always here, just on the other side, watching.”

The fence slowed them. It did not stop them.

Science Joins the War

In the 1950s, science joined the battle. The myxomatosis virus, deliberately introduced to Australia, cut the rabbit population from hundreds of millions to fewer than a hundred million almost overnight. Farmers rejoiced, but the victory was short-lived. Survivors bred a resistant strain, and the numbers began to climb once again. Later, the calicivirus brought another collapse—only for history to repeat itself.

A War With No End

Today, Australia still battles its most enduring invader. Modern tactics involve a mix of biological controls, shooting, poisoning, and new, stronger fences. Yet in some remote places, the ground can still ripple at night with that same terrible movement William Cooper once saw.

And perhaps that is the most unsettling truth of all—because in Australia, the war against the rabbits has no end.

Even now, under a silver moon, the grass can shiver without wind. And when it does, you know the ground has come alive again.

References

Lu, D. (2022) ‘Australia’s rabbit invasion traced back to single importation of 24 animals in 1859, study finds’, The Guardian, 22 August. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/23/australias-rabbit-invasion-traced-back-to-single-importation-of-24-animals-in-1859-study-finds (Accessed: 11 August 2025).

University of Cambridge/UNSW Media (2022) DNA profiling helps explain how the rabbit plague took over Australia. Available at: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/08/dna-profiling-helps-explain-how-the-rabbit-plague-took-over-aust (Accessed: 11 August 2025).

Science.org (2022) ‘A 19th century farmer may be to blame for Australia’s rabbit scourge’, Science. Available at: https://www.science.org/content/article/19th-century-farmer-may-be-blame-australia-s-rabbit-scourge (Accessed: 11 August 2025).