200 Million Rabbits in Australia Came From Just a Handful in the 1800s.

An estimated 200 million wild rabbits live in Australia. Does a nation the size of Australia have that many rabbits? Certainly, given that it is intended to have none. Rabbits were never intended to be in Australia in the first place, making them one of the numerous invasive animals that have caused issues there. All 200 million of them originate from a small number of 1859 releases.

Despite arriving at the continent as early as 1788, it's thought that between 13 and 24 of the animals were released from settler Thomas Austin's farm in 1859. He may have released the animals for hunting after letting them run free in his yard. Clearly, he wasn't able to find them all.

Since then, Australians have been waging a losing war against rabbits. They were killing two million people annually in the late 1800s and making little progress. Most infamously, they attempted to build a fence that was successful against larger animals but ineffective against rabbits over the entire nation. Before the building was constructed, they were on the opposite side of the fence.