Australia Fends Off Critic of Plan to Eradicate Rabbits

摘要

Last spring theAustralian government began a 2-year biological warfare experiment with a potent, imported virus. The target: wild rabbits, which have spread economic and ecological disaster throughout Australia. The plan was to study the natural course of the Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD) virus, also known as Rabbit Calicivirus Disease, among a quarantined population of rabbits on tiny Wardang Island off the South Australia coast. If the deadly experiment was a success, the next step would be a large-scale releasetargeting the country's estimated 300 million feral rabbits, descendants of a dozen animals brought from Europe almost 150 years ago.