Everybody in New Zealand knows something about rabbits; a great many know a good deal about their habits, their value for fur and for gastronomic purposes, and their destructiveness; but very few know about the history of their introduction.

Probably every one knows that the rabbit (Lepus cuniculus) is a burrowing-animal, which thrives particularly in more or less dry regions. A wet climate does not suit it, and although there are regions in New Zealand where rabbits are to be met with but only rarely, yet, as a general rule, they are particularly abundant where there is a limited annual rainfall. They increase at a great rate, the female producing several litters of young in a season, and commencing to breed when about six months old. The young are born blind and naked, and are housed by the mother in a warm nest which is lined with fur pulled from her own body.

Rabbits have long been domesticated, and several well-marked breeds have been developed. For example, in the “lop-eared,” the ears are large flaps pendent on each side of the head, and often touching the ground. They are of many colours—white, black, brown, and fawn—sometimes of one nearly uniform hue, but more often mixed. It is clear that many of our New Zealand wild rabbits are descended from tame ones, for they still retain their mixed colours. Albinos, with white fur and pink eyes, form a distinct variety by themselves, and breed true. The Angora rabbits have long fur, and are nearly always albinos.

The introduction of the rabbit into New Zealand has produced such far-reaching effects and wrought such changes throughout the country that it requires more than the sober language of the naturalist to describe them. One thing is quite certain—namely, that the animal was deliberately introduced into the country not by one individual, but by numbers of persons, and by several acclimatization societies. But no one will accept the blame for their introduction, so I may as well detail all the facts known to me about their early history in New Zealand.

According to the Rev. Richard Taylor, author of “Te Ika a Maui,” the early missionaries were the first to introduce rabbits into the country; but, unfortunately, he gives no dates. If he is correct, however, they were almost certainly brought from New South Wales to the far northern part of the colony between 1820 and 1830. They probably never increased to any great extent, for, though there are rabbits in a few localities north of Whangarei (I will specify localities later), they are scarcely a pest there.

I am told that Jerningham Wakefield reported them as being placed on Mana and Kapiti Islands, in Cook Strait, in 1840 or 1841, but I cannot find any verification of the record. The first definite notice I have discovered is in Mr. Tuckett’s diary of his expedition to the South Island, which is printed as an appendix to Dr. Hocken’s “Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand.” Speaking of the country between the mouths of the Clutha and Mataura Rivers, Tuckett writes, under date the 19th May, 1944, “Palmer has grown wheat and barley as well as potatoes, and has plenty of fine fowls and ducks and some goats.... Returning from Tapuke [Taukupu], we landed on the island, and, with the assistance of a capital beagle, caught six rabbits alive and uninjured.” He does not say whether any were liberated on the mainland, nor whether it was possible for those on the island to get ashore.

Mr. James Begg, who has given me some very valuable information as to the earliest attempts to introduce these animals, tells me that “when Willsher and party settled at Port Molyneux in the early ‘forties’ they sent to Sydney for rabbits, but whether they obtained them or not I am unable to say. From early days there was at least one colony of rabbits on the upper Waitaki. These remained quite local in their habits, and did not increase to any great extent. They were finally overwhelmed by the invasion of the grey rabbit from the south. The late Mr. Telford, of Clifton, introduced some rabbits and bred them in hutches till they numbered about fifty. They were then liberated on Clifton, near the banks of the Molyneux, but died out in a short time. This was about the year 1864. Mr. Clapcott also liberated some at the old homestead at Popotunoa Station [Clinton], but they also failed to thrive, and disappeared. It is probable that there were other attempts to acclimatize rabbits, all more or less unsuccessful.”

From the point of view of a naturalist the failure of these attempts is very interesting. It shows that there is a vast difference in the aggressive power of the various breeds, for the country on which these various lots of rabbits failed to make good has since been completely overrun by other rabbits. It may be that they were unable to establish themselves until a certain amount of clearing had been done, and till a considerable number of wekas had been destroyed by tussock fires and other means. Whatever the cause, it is the case that no rabbits were able to establish themselves freely in New Zealand before 1860.

Dr. Menzies, who was at the time Superintendent of the Province of Southland, is usually credited with having been the successful introducer of them to the south of the South Island, an achievement the credit of which has not been very eagerly sought after. They were liberated on the sandhills between the ocean and the New River, a place known as Sandy Point.

According to Mr. Huddlestone, silver-grey rabbits were first introduced into Nelson in or about 1865; but there is no record as to what came of this importation. Sir George Grey also appears to have introduced them at or about the same time, for in the annual report of the Canterbury Acclimatization Society in 1866 it is said that “an enclosure has been set apart for the silver-grey rabbits presented by Sir George Grey, which have thriven well and increased to a great extent, and have been distributed to members far and near.” Later in the same year the society passed this minute: “The suggestion of giving as a reward for the destruction of hawks and wild cats some silver-grey rabbits was approved.”

There is a very popular impression that the Otago Acclimatization Society has no responsibility in connection with the rabbit plague. Well, here are the figures taken from one of their own reports: “In 1866 the society liberated sixty rabbits, twenty-three in 1867, and eighteen in 1868. There is no record as to where these came from.”

These are the only records I have been able to secure so far as to the introduction of rabbits into this colony, but there is still a source of information to be searched—namely, the publications of the Provincial Government of Southland. But there can be no doubt, I think, that what happened in the south happened elsewhere at every port where settlement took place, and that private individuals at Nelson, Wellington, New Plymouth, and Napier also imported rabbits. But when the animals became a pest, and their increase was recognized to be a calamity to the country, every one was desirous of repudiating the responsibility for their introduction. Thus the framer of the annual report of the Canterbury Society for 1889, not having read the statement in the report for 1866, says, concerning “the rabbit, that great scourge to our large runholders—that the introduction of these cannot be laid to the charge of this society.” Similarly, Mr. A. Bathgate, of Dunedin, in 1897, wrote, “It is to them [the Provincial Government of Southland] that we are indebted for the presence of the rabbit.”

The repudiation of the responsibility for the rabbits is almost as funny as that for the sparrows. As soon as an animal turns out differently from what was expected of it, and becomes a pest instead of a blessing, then no one will admit having had anything to do with the initial mistake of bringing it into the country.

From 1866 onwards the spread of the rabbits was phenomenal. I quote part of Mr. Begg’s account of this increase: “About the year 1874 they began to make their presence felt in an unpleasant manner. By 1878 they had reached Lake Wakatipu, leaving a devastated country behind them. At the same time they had reached as far east as the Clutha River, and in a few years later had overrun the greater part of Otago as well as the whole of Southland. Those were evil days for farmers in that part of New Zealand, and especially for the squatters, who occupied large areas of grazing-country. The fine natural grasses on which the sheep and cattle grazed were almost totally destroyed. Sheep perished from starvation by hundreds of thousands, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the squatters were ruined. On the old Burwood Station the number of sheep fell in one year from 119,000 to 30,000. This was partly due to heavy snow, but the rabbits prevented any recovery. It is doubtful if the same country to-day carries more than 40,000 sheep. From the year 1878 onwards immense areas of grazing-land were abandoned, as the owners gave up the unequal struggle with the rabbits. In the early days hunting with dogs, shooting, digging out the warren, poisoning with various baits, and trapping were the methods by which farmers tried to rid themselves of the pest. Later, wire netting, the introduction of stoats, weasels, and ferrets, fumigating the burrows with poisonous gases (such as carbon disulphide and hydrocyanic acid), and the stimulus given to trapping by the export trade in frozen rabbits, have been relied upon to reduce their numbers. In the writer’s experience practically no progress was made in reducing the numbers of rabbits till about the year 1895. From that year there has been a steady diminution. For twenty years the rabbits had the upper hand, and, though many millions were killed annually, no reduction in their abundance was noticeable. In the last twenty years there has been a steady decrease. Large areas of hill country in the wetter districts are now completely clear of rabbits, though they still persist in favourable situations. In the dry country in Central Otago they are still very troublesome and very vigorous, and their evil effects are there seen on hundreds of square miles of country, once the finest grazing-land in New Zealand, now little better than a desert.”

It must not be assumed that every one regards the rabbit as a nuisance. Many a successful farmer of to-day got a start as a rabbiter. The killing of rabbits actually became one of the principal industries of the province. Their presence directly led to the subdivision of large estates, and may have been quite as effective in this direction as all the legislation on the subject. Since the war rabbit-skins have become extraordinarily valuable, so that, instead of landholders paying for the destruction of rabbits, rabbiters offer premiums for permission to go on to land to trap the rabbits.

The introduction of rabbits had a lasting effect on acclimatization generally. Before their advent partridges and pheasants had become numerous, but they have entirely disappeared in Otago. In the effort to cope with the rabbits the country was annually sown with poisoned grain. This had a disastrous effect on both native and imported game. Had rabbits not become a nuisance it is unlikely that weasels and other vermin would have been introduced. These animals are largely responsible for the decrease in the numbers of native birds, and also make the successful introduction of new varieties more difficult.

The economic waste caused by the vast increase of rabbits in New Zealand is incalculable, and certainly represents a loss in the stock-carrying capacity of the country which probably runs every year into millions of pounds. It is not only that they eat up food which would support some millions more sheep than are at present reared, but they destroy large areas of country, and yield very little return for the damage they do. The annual export of approximately three million rabbits, valued at (in pre-war times) about £70,000, and of some eight millions of skins, valued at about £115,000, is all the return they give, but it represents only a small proportion of the pest. In all parts where rabbits abound their destruction entails a heavy expense on the occupiers of the land. There are no data available to enable any one to estimate how many rabbits are destroyed every year, but far more are killed by phosphorus than by trapping. The latter method alone furnishes any statistical data; the former is an unknown quantity, but it represents a very large figure.

Probably the most ghastly exhibition of the work of rabbits is to be found in the grass-denuded districts of Central Otago, parts of which have been reduced to the condition of a desert. It is improbable that this state of affairs could have been brought about by rabbits alone. Before their advent the runholders who had possession of the arid regions, in which the rainfall probably averages 10 in. to 12 in. annually, and certainly never exceeds 15 in., were doing their best to denude the surface of the ground by overstocking with sheep and by frequent burning. The latter was resorted to because many of the large tussock-forming grasses, especially such as the silver-tussock (Poa caespitosa), yielded coarse and rather unpalatable fodder, but after burning the tufts a crop of tender green leaves sprung up, which were very readily eaten. Unfortunately the burning not only got rid of most of the coarse growth of the tussocks, but it also swept off the numerous bottom grasses which occupied the intervening spaces, which were the mainstay of the depasturing flocks. Even before the rabbits arrived the work of denudation of the grass covering had been proceeding apace through the causes mentioned. Thus Buchanan, writing in 1865, said, “It is no wonder that many of the runs require 8 acres to feed one sheep, according to an official estimate.” Mr. Petrie thought this an unduly severe estimate, “as in the mid-‘seventies’ the sheep-runs of Central Otago were reputed to carry at least one sheep to 3 acres, or somewhat less.”

Mr. Petrie, who has reported to the Department of Agriculture on these grass-denuded lands of Central Otago, knows more about this subject than any one else who has written on it, and I quote him at some length. He says, “Before the rabbit invasion began the hill-slopes carried a fairly rich and varied covering of tussock and other grasses, and, except on the steeper rock and sun-baked faces, had not been seriously depleted even in the early ‘nineties.’ The earlier stages of this depletion may now be seen in several of the Central Otago ranges, as on the spurs of the Rough Ridge and the Morven Hills districts. The northern slopes of the spurs are almost, in many instances, entirely bare of grass, while the southern shaded slopes still carry a fair amount of pasture. The grass covering generally stops abruptly at the bottoms of the valleys, even when those are not worn into water-channels. The vastly greater depletion of the pasture on the northern slopes is easy enough to understand. They are more exposed to the sun and to the frequent violent parching north-west winds; they lose their covering of snow earlier in spring than the southern slopes, and are thus more closely grazed at a critical season for the pasture; and sheep at all times show a preference for feeding on the warmer sunny slopes. When the pasture on the exposed slopes fails, that on the shaded slopes has to feed all the stock that is about, and unless the stocking is reduced to meet the new conditions the remaining grasses are sooner or later eaten out. The desert, with all its problems, is then established.”

In his account of how desert conditions arise in Central Otago Mr. Petrie refers only to the effects produced by sheep, because it is the loss in sheep-carrying capacity which is so serious; but later on, after describing a typical specimen of the country, and showing that in inaccessible situations a considerable variety of vigorous grasses live on, he adds, “This is one of the facts that go to indicate that the extermination of the grasses in this desert country is mainly due to eating out by overstocking, rabbits as well as sheep being included among the stock carried.... The desert and the greatly denuded lands are not wholly destitute of vegetation. In most of their lower areas greyish, flattened, firm, nearly circular patches of scabweed (Raoulia australis and R. lutescens) are thickly dotted about the bare ground. Though otherwise useless, these moss-like composite plants help to keep the soil from being blown or washed away, and when old supply, in the decayed centres of the patches, spots with some amount of humus where grass-seeds can more readily settle and grow.” These plants are never eaten by either sheep or rabbits.

In regard to other native plants, rabbits have nearly exterminated the wild spear-grasses (Aciphylla squarrosa and A. Colensoi), which used to be so abundant. They particularly attack these plants when the ground is covered with snow. Mr. Petrie, writing me three years ago, said, “When I first visited inland Otago, in 1874, Aciphylla Colensoi was most abundant. In riding about it was almost impossible to deviate from well-beaten tracks or roads because the spines pricked the legs and feet of the horses.” In later years these plants have become rare. Captain Hutton, writing me in March, 1892, said, “As to the extermination of the wild-spaniards (Aciphylla), I believe it to be due to rabbits. When I was in the Nelson District in 1872–73 there were no rabbits on the eastern side of the Upper Wairau near Tarndale, but they were abundant on the western side. Spaniards were abundant on the eastern side, but almost destroyed on the western. The rabbits seemed to burrow under the plants, and then eat the roots.”

Several species of Celmisia (notably C. densiflora) have been greatly checked, and others are almost exterminated. Mr. B. C. Aston, in his ascent of the Kaimanawas in 1914–15, found that at a height of 4,200 ft. Panax Colensoi was nearly exterminated by rabbits, which had ring-barked all the young trees. This mischief is done after heavy falls of snow, when the rabbits are driven down from the tussock-land into the gullies of the scrub and forest zones. Trees of Panax Edgerleyi from 19 ft. to 20 ft. high were found to be ring-barked and dead.

In a good many rabbit-infested districts, particularly in the North Island, these animals have aided very materially in producing a certain amount of erosion and washing-down of alluvium by burrowing extensively in the banks of rivers and small streams. When floods came down, these undermined portions were commonly swept away where the firmer banks resisted the impact of the water. Dr. C. A. Cotton, of Wellington, considers that this action has caused a slight rejuvenation of erosion in certain districts and river-systems. Cattle, sheep, and goats assist in this work, but rabbits are the most active agents in it. The Rev. A. Don, writing to me in 1901, said, “The rabbits, by stripping the ground of vegetation and burrowing into the faces of the slopes, are converting what were once nice green hillsides into shingle-slopes, because when once the face is so bared and its surface broken it begins to slip.” Mr. Petrie also refers to this process in his report, as follows: “The soil on the grass-denuded slopes, which is by no means infertile, being no longer held together by the roots of plants, is being rapidly removed by wind and rain, and pebbles and angular stones are now closely dotted over great stretches of hillside that not many years ago were covered with soil. On the steeper slopes, indeed, the soil is being rapidly sluiced down into the gullies and thence into the river, and deep, narrow, chasm-like watercourses are being dug out.”

I was at one time under the impression that in this new country, where the causes—especially the natural enemies—which kept them in check in their original home were wanting, and there seemed to be nothing to arrest their development in any direction, there might arise new varieties of rabbits, with modified habits, structure, &c. Particularly did it seem likely that colour variations would thrive unchecked, and the traveller passing through certain districts in Otago is certainly surprised at the number of conspicuously coloured animals to be seen. I was down at Romahapa recently and saw some rabbits at the edge of the bush, and among a dozen of them there were some with white, buff, and black. I was informed also that there are a number of them in the district with a white ruff round the neck. Other observers bear me out in the prevalence of coloured varieties among the wild rabbits. Thus Mr. W. H. Gates, of Skipper’s, a keen observer of nature, writing me two years ago, said, “As for colour, they are of all colours—grey-and-white, tan-and-white, grey with a black ridge down the backbone, grey with a white ring round their necks, cream with a darker shade down the backbone, and buff.” Other observers speak of the prevalence of black, black-and-white, and yellow rabbits. Grey is certainly the best colour to hide a rabbit in sandy ground covered with somewhat dry herbage, and in a district like Central Otago, where rabbits are as “thick as locomotives”—as a certain Gaelic acquaintance of mine with a limited knowledge of English and of locusts put it—one can almost walk over the rabbits, as long as they sit still, without seeing them. The warning white tail of the rabbit is a danger-signal to other rabbits, for whenever a rabbit is running for shelter its white scut warns all the others which it passes to run also. To find out with some approximation of accuracy whether my idea of the prevalence of coloured rabbits was correct or not, I applied to Mr. R. S. Black, of Dunedin, who is a very large exporter of rabbit-skins, for information. Mr. Black informed me that, while they are of all colours, yet 95 per cent. of the skins exported are grey. The other colours appeal to the eye, but they are not so common, after all.

That the rabbits of aberrant colours should survive is not to be wondered at, seeing that in this country there are no foxes, and neither owls nor hawks large enough or active enough to tackle a full-grown rabbit. The common harrier hawk takes a considerable toll of young rabbits, but is quite unable to keep them in check. In many districts wild cats live mainly on rabbits.

I have from the far north an interesting record of a curious habit among rabbits. Mr. Yarborough, of Kohukohu, writing in August, 1916, tells me that rabbits became quite common in a district near Kawakawa, at the head of the Bay of Islands, many years ago. Recently they have reached the eastern side of the Hokianga River, and it is not unusual to see them occasionally. Then he adds this interesting statement: “I have never heard of any rabbit-burrows, as they appear to breed among the rocks and roots of trees.” Another observer from an adjacent district says that these animals are not uncommon near Kaikohe, where they do make shallow burrows. The comparatively heavy rainfall of Hokianga, amounting to from 60 in. to 70 in. in a year, has no doubt a good deal to do with the comparative scarcity of the rabbit in that part of New Zealand.