In 1859, Thomas Austin received 24 rabbits in Australia for hunting; their descendants exploded into roughly 200 million and still ravage crops and ecosystems

On Christmas Day in 1859, a shipment of 24 European rabbits arrived in Melbourne, sent from England to Thomas Austin, a settler on his Barwon Park estate near Geelong, Victoria. Austin, a passionate hunter who missed the sporting traditions of his homeland, had asked relatives back home to send him the animals so that he and his guests could shoot them for sport.

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