[day24782021-07-08]
Lesson 17-1 A man-made disease
In the early days of the settlement of Australia, enterprising settlers
unwisely introduced the European rabbit. This rabbit had no natural
enemies in the Antipodes, so that it multiplied with that promiscuous
abandon characteristic of rabbits. It overran a whole continent. It caused
devastation by burrowing and by devouring the herbage which might
have maintained millions of sheep and cattle Scientists discovered that
this particular variety of rabbit (and apparently no other animal)was
susceptible to a fatal virus disease, myxomatosis. By infecting animals
and letting them loose in the burrows, local epidemics of this disease
could be created. Later it was found that there was a type of mosquito
which acted as the carrier of this disease and passed it on to the rabbits
So while the rest of the world was trying to get rid of mosquitoes,
Australia was encouraging this one.
