TIGHT security will surround field trials of a lethal virus that Australia hopes to unleash on its population of wild rabbits, which is now reaching pestilential proportions. Trials with the virus begin next month on an island off the coast of South Australia. The tough security measures are designed to prevent the virus escaping accidentally and also to ensure that no desperate farmers start their own eradication programmes by stealing a few infected rabbits and liberating them on their farms.
At a time of widespread drought, Australian farmers are worried by the increasing numbers of rabbits, now put at between 200 and 300 million. Rabbits compete with livestock for pasture, kill young trees and shrubs, and contribute to soil erosion by stripping vegetation and burrowing through the soil.
The rabbit problem is particularly acute in semiarid regions and is estimated to cost Australia more than A$90 million (£45 million) a ...
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