According to the Rev. Richard Taylor, author of “Te Ika a Maui,” the early missionaries were the first to introduce rabbits into the country; but, unfortunately, he gives no dates. If he is correct, however, they were almost certainly brought from New South Wales to the far northern part of the colony between 1820 and 1830. They probably never increased to any great extent, for, though there are rabbits in a few localities north of Whangarei (I will specify localities later), they are scarcely a pest there.
I am told that Jerningham Wakefield reported them as being placed on Mana and Kapiti Islands, in Cook Strait, in 1840 or 1841, but I cannot find any verification of the record. The first definite notice I have discovered is in Mr. Tuckett’s diary of his expedition to the South Island, which is printed as an appendix to Dr. Hocken’s “Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand.” Speaking of the country between the mouths of the Clutha and Mataura Rivers, Tuckett writes, under date the 19th May, 1944, “Palmer has grown wheat and barley as well as potatoes, and has plenty of fine fowls and ducks and some goats.... Returning from Tapuke [Taukupu], we landed on the island, and, with the assistance of a capital beagle, caught six rabbits alive and uninjured.” He does not say whether any were liberated on the mainland, nor whether it was possible for those on the island to get ashore.
Mr. James Begg, who has given me some very valuable information as to the earliest attempts to introduce these animals, tells me that “when Willsher and party settled at Port Molyneux in the early ‘forties’ they sent to Sydney for rabbits, but whether they obtained them or not I am unable to say. From early days there was at least one colony of rabbits on the upper Waitaki. These remained quite local in their habits, and did not increase to any great extent. They were finally overwhelmed by the invasion of the grey rabbit from the south. The late Mr. Telford, of Clifton, introduced some rabbits and bred them in hutches till they numbered about fifty. They were then liberated on Clifton, near the banks of the Molyneux, but died out in a short time. This was about the year 1864. Mr. Clapcott also liberated some at the old homestead at Popotunoa Station [Clinton], but they also failed to thrive, and disappeared. It is probable that there were other attempts to acclimatize rabbits, all more or less unsuccessful.”
From the point of view of a naturalist the failure of these attempts is very interesting. It shows that there is a vast difference in the aggressive power of the various breeds, for the country on which these various lots of rabbits failed to make good has since been completely overrun by other rabbits. It may be that they were unable to establish themselves until a certain amount of clearing had been done, and till a considerable number of wekas had been destroyed by tussock fires and other means. Whatever the cause, it is the case that no rabbits were able to establish themselves freely in New Zealand before 1860.
Dr. Menzies, who was at the time Superintendent of the Province of Southland, is usually credited with having been the successful introducer of them to the south of the South Island, an achievement the credit of which has not been very eagerly sought after. They were liberated on the sandhills between the ocean and the New River, a place known as Sandy Point.
According to Mr. Huddlestone, silver-grey rabbits were first introduced into Nelson in or about 1865; but there is no record as to what came of this importation. Sir George Grey also appears to have introduced them at or about the same time, for in the annual report of the Canterbury Acclimatization Society in 1866 it is said that “an enclosure has been set apart for the silver-grey rabbits presented by Sir George Grey, which have thriven well and increased to a great extent, and have been distributed to members far and near.” Later in the same year the society passed this minute: “The suggestion of giving as a reward for the destruction of hawks and wild cats some silver-grey rabbits was approved.”
There is a very popular impression that the Otago Acclimatization Society has no responsibility in connection with the rabbit plague. Well, here are the figures taken from one of their own reports: “In 1866 the society liberated sixty rabbits, twenty-three in 1867, and eighteen in 1868. There is no record as to where these came from.”
These are the only records I have been able to secure so far as to the introduction of rabbits into this colony, but there is still a source of information to be searched—namely, the publications of the Provincial Government of Southland. But there can be no doubt, I think, that what happened in the south happened elsewhere at every port where settlement took place, and that private individuals at Nelson, Wellington, New Plymouth, and Napier also imported rabbits. But when the animals became a pest, and their increase was recognized to be a calamity to the country, every one was desirous of repudiating the responsibility for their introduction. Thus the framer of the annual report of the Canterbury Society for 1889, not having read the statement in the report for 1866, says, concerning “the rabbit, that great scourge to our large runholders—that the introduction of these cannot be laid to the charge of this society.” Similarly, Mr. A. Bathgate, of Dunedin, in 1897, wrote, “It is to them [the Provincial Government of Southland] that we are indebted for the presence of the rabbit.”
The repudiation of the responsibility for the rabbits is almost as funny as that for the sparrows. As soon as an animal turns out differently from what was expected of it, and becomes a pest instead of a blessing, then no one will admit having had anything to do with the initial mistake of bringing it into the country.
From 1866 onwards the spread of the rabbits was phenomenal. I quote part of Mr. Begg’s account of this increase: “About the year 1874 they began to make their presence felt in an unpleasant manner. By 1878 they had reached Lake Wakatipu, leaving a devastated country behind them. At the same time they had reached as far east as the Clutha River, and in a few years later had overrun the greater part of Otago as well as the whole of Southland. Those were evil days for farmers in that part of New Zealand, and especially for the squatters, who occupied large areas of grazing-country. The fine natural grasses on which the sheep and cattle grazed were almost totally destroyed. Sheep perished from starvation by hundreds of thousands, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the squatters were ruined. On the old Burwood Station the number of sheep fell in one year from 119,000 to 30,000. This was partly due to heavy snow, but the rabbits prevented any recovery. It is doubtful if the same country to-day carries more than 40,000 sheep. From the year 1878 onwards immense areas of grazing-land were abandoned, as the owners gave up the unequal struggle with the rabbits. In the early days hunting with dogs, shooting, digging out the warren, poisoning with various baits, and trapping were the methods by which farmers tried to rid themselves of the pest. Later, wire netting, the introduction of stoats, weasels, and ferrets, fumigating the burrows with poisonous gases (such as carbon disulphide and hydrocyanic acid), and the stimulus given to trapping by the export trade in frozen rabbits, have been relied upon to reduce their numbers. In the writer’s experience practically no progress was made in reducing the numbers of rabbits till about the year 1895. From that year there has been a steady diminution. For twenty years the rabbits had the upper hand, and, though many millions were killed annually, no reduction in their abundance was noticeable. In the last twenty years there has been a steady decrease. Large areas of hill country in the wetter districts are now completely clear of rabbits, though they still persist in favourable situations. In the dry country in Central Otago they are still very troublesome and very vigorous, and their evil effects are there seen on hundreds of square miles of country, once the finest grazing-land in New Zealand, now little better than a desert.”