(Potential) Troublemaker

The following article by Danielle Grindlay is about hares in Australia. It was first published by ABC News on June 1, 2014.

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If farmers compiled a list of pests wreaking havoc at their place, it’s unlikely hares would even get a look in.

But could Australia be faced with plagues in the future?

Adelaide University’s Dr Philip Stott has been researching hares for the past 20 years and readily admits he can’t answer that question.

"I don’t know what keeps the lid on the hare population, they breed well enough. It could be fox predation, for example, and if we manage to eradicate foxes, we could end up with massive hare plagues on our hands once again."

Dr Stott says he is the only person in Australia trying to understand the species’ population growth. Much of his research has focussed on three high-density areas, in western Victoria and eastern South Australia.

"They were first introduced [successfully] to 10 places in Australia. "On the western tablelands of New South Wales in the 1890s and also in north east Victoria, from about 1915 to about 1940, there were plagues of hares. Most of the population’s just forgotten about them."

Dr Stott says adult females, called 'Jills', have the capacity to produce nine young every year and eat four times that of rabbits. He also discovered hares are carriers of sheep worms, which establish inside them and lay eggs.

"A farm isn’t quarantined as far as sheep worms are concerned," he says. "You can have a wind-break, for example, with fences three metres apart and you might think the worms can’t get across that barrier. But they can, they are getting across that barrier."

Hares are officially regarded as a minor pest and therefore Dr Stott says, research funding is hard to come by. But he predicts, should the lid be taken off Australia’s population, it will only take a couple of years before farmers are faced with plague numbers.

"You won’t know in advance, you’ll just suddenly see there’s all these hares around the place. I see them as a species that’s out there and that has the potential to cause a lot more trouble down the track."


Image: Richard Taylor/Flickr.