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Comment by farseer | Hacker News Reader

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.

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

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.)

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