Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

I was disappointed by the partial/early release of RHDV1 back in the 1990s in Australia. Quite apart from being terrible biosecurity (that somehow it got released from secure facilities before time) I belive it kind-of backfired, establishing partial immunity in the wild before the official release. Maybe the news of the time sensationalised it, but it felt like a mis-managed situation. I hope this RHDV2 release goes well. (I know rabbit owners, I realize how stressful and upsetting this story may be, but feral rabbits are huge problem)

View on HN

Was it an accidental release in Australia? Because in New Zealand it was smuggled in by farmers and released without government approval, in an attempt to keep rabbit numbers down.

It did work, but it was no where near as effective as if it was released at the correct time. It was released shortly before mating season so the rabbit kits apparently gained immunity.

Was it an accidental release in Australia? You know, I always believed somebody deliberately jumped the gun. It was a long time ago, and I can't find a definitive statement, but that was my memory of the national news at the time.

So I went looking. The language is more considered. it tends more to 'unplanned accidental release' than 'guy goes off-piste and carries virus out the door bypassing security'

But.. maybe you can dig harder?

A huge problem they caused in the first place, but having the unsubtle mentality they are demonstrating right now with the release of the virus.

I predict that this second release will unwind even worst consequences that they will endure, while saying they couldn't have predicted it.

Would you care to predict for us what consequences this will have?

That would be pretending I can do what I just say they can't, wouldn't it ?

If you let a child play baseball in a museum, you can predict something will go wrong. That doen't mean you can say which statue or painting is going to be destroyed, or in what way.

Enough of a problem to resort to bio warfare?

Yes.

This is also a country which wants to eradicate rats, possums, stoats, feral cats, and several other predators by 2050. See New Zealand aims to become predator-free by 2050 , linked to from this article.

See also "The Big Kill - New Zealand’s crusade to rid itself of mammals." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/big-kill ("mammals" here does not mean "all mammals").

New Zealand ridding itself of sheep and people would be an interesting choice.

In New Zealand, non-native animals have driven several of the unique local species into extinction, and are working on more. The people there take it very seriously.

Globalisation is basically constant bio warfare on so many Australian species. The cane toad being the most notable on its slow march into Kakadu, we really do have to kill all the rabbits and all the toads for the ecosystem. From what I understand it’s the same in NZ.

Cane toads are a terrible example because they were deliberately introduced as a biological control that backfired spectacularly.

Many Australian species are dying out because simply terrible at being animals. (It's not a matter of being overspecialized, because imported generalists like rats, mice and cats are outcompeting the native animals even in their specialized niches. They're just ineffective at surviving and reproducing.)

Biowarfare is what's already going on with invasive non-native species wiping out the native ecosystem.

Or, alternatively, evolution is what's going on and trying to maintain the status quo is unnatural.

But arguably, these species weren't supposed to be here "naturally", so isn't this unnatural? Doesn't this make an unnatural method to stop something unnatural okay?

Also, if introduced/invasive species taking over a region is "evolution" etc, then the virus will just be another invasive species and the rabbits will have to face the consequences of evolution

Reply on news.ycombinator.com