Queensland - Close Encounters of the Easter Bunny kind

I thought it might have been an April Fool's prank when I read the article in yesterday's Courier-Mail reminding all good landowners to kill as many rabbits as possible this Easter. I guess it's a bit of a culture shock, for a reader in the UK, but the article was deadly serious and, judging by the raging debate in the Comments section, controlling Queensland's rabbit population seems to be a very emotive and divisive issue.

There also seems to be a real city/country divide in this debate. On one side are the concerned housewives of Brisbane, totally appaled by the bad taste of the article and the recommendations to rip up the rabbit warrens, a cruel but effective way of dealing with overpopulation. On the other side are the farmers, struggling to eke an existence out of an already quite challenging soil.

Being a rabbit myself (according to my Chinese horoscope) my instinct is to side with the bunnies and their, very natural, desire to breed and prosper. Europeans (well, one Victorian settler in particular) created this problem, right? Maybe we need to live with the consequences and let Mother Nature find a solution?

If this was just a question of rabbits eating up human profits, then I'd probably stick to this, however (apologies to my fellow bunnies) rabbits are a pest that have caused untold devastation to the fragile ecology of Australia, outeating native mammals (like the incredibly cute Bilby), destroying native plants and causing major soil erosion. It might cause some mirth to people here in the UK, as we're tucking in to our chocolate bunnies and eggs this weekend, but it's an incredibly serious issue for people in Queensland and one that may be difficult to resolve.

I was genuinely surprised to find out that owning pet rabbits is banned in Queensland and you can be fined up to 30,000 Aussie dollars if you contravene this ban. Although plagues of rabbit were first reported in Victoria and Tasmania, the year-round warmth in Queensland has encouraged rabbits to breed more than they would in Europe, where they seem to 'take a break' during the winter.

If only they'd had time to evolve in the way native mammals like the Antechinus has done.  The male Antechinus (a type of rodent) only lives for 11 months, the first ten of which are spent eating and growing.  Like many male mammals, the Antechinus' thoughts eventually turn to reproduction and males spend their eleventh month engaged in this noble pursuit, dying with exhaustion as they literally shag themselves to death.  A lack of male Antechinus after the 11th month, means the female of the species has less competition in terms of feeding herself and a new generation.

Ironically, it's highly likely that the rabbit populations only survive in Australia because people do. I'm sure that the Australian outback is an incredibly hostile environment for rabbits and it's only human interaction with the Australian soil that has created suitable conditions for farming which, as well as feeding the human population, has also sustained the 400 million rabbits that are estimated to live in Australia.

Of course (European) spring is an apt time to talk about rabbits and it's no coincidence that rabbits appear, in chocolate form, as part of our Easter celebrations. In many cultures rabbits are associated with fertility and survival instincts. In some cases, like Israel, this is interpreted as cowardice, rabbits being the Hebrew equivalent of 'chicken' in English, eg 'to chicken out' of doing something.

In other cultures, like the myths of West Africa and the Cherokee tribes of North America, rabbits are considered to be extremely clever tricksters. This mythology has been handed down to us through the Br'er Rabbit stories and, ultimately, cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny.

The playfulness of rabbits has been applied to human sexuality, especially in advertising products for women, so that everywhere from an Argos catalogue to a hen party in Blackpool, you will see that supreme icon of rabbit mythology, the Playboy bunny.

Interestingly, Oriental mythologies, such as those in Japan and Korea, associate rabbits with the moon and, I can't help wondering if indeed it's our entire planet, not just Australia, that has been taken over by these furry fiends!

Image credits:

The image of the Queensland flag has been created for Wikimedia Commons by user Denelson83 who is male and comes from Vancouver Island. He has contributed a lot of flag images to Wikimedia Commons, so thanks Denelson83 for sharing these with the world!


The image of the rabbit is from flickruser Wolfpix a.k.a. Jack Wolf.  Jack is from Albany in California and is an incredibly talented wildlife photographer - you can see more of his images on his commercial website http://www.imagekind.com/
 
The image of the Playboy Bunny Tattoo was provided copyright free by flickruser cwalker71 a.k.a. Chuck Walker - Chuck is a freelance photographer from Pitman, New Jersey and you can also visit his site http://cwalkerphoto.com/
 

Queensland - G'day mate

Queensland, Australia - what a journey this is going to be!  For those of you who regularly read this blog, I'm just back from two weeks of 'real' travelling around Cuba and it feels like centuries since the last time I blogged.  One of the great things about Cuba was that I got a break from 'being connected' with the rest of the world.  As much as I love Facebook and Twitter and my blog, it does no harm to get some time out every now and then.  On the flight on the way over to Havana, I watched Julie and Julia which was an amazing movie and I can understand now why people draw parallels with what I'm doing, although it's vastly different (apart from the cooking bit).

I've been writing this blog for seven months now and I've really enjoyed it.  I've had over 1,000 hits, from all over the world and, most excitingly, from places like Lesotho, Oklahoma and Paraguay, ie. the places I've been blogging about.  For those of you who are visiting for the first time, in the next month or so, I will try to immerse myself in the history, culture, music and cooking of Queensland.  As much as possible, I will try to see the world from the point of view of a Queenslander and I will try to understand what it is that makes Queensland tick.

One of my closest friends in the world (and a regular reader of this blog) is from Melbourne so, thanks to her, I have learned an awful lot about Australian culture already.  I've also read The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, which is a truly inspirational book and really helped me understand Aboriginal culture a little bit and the idea of the first people being 'caretakers of the land'.  I've listened to a lot of Australian music, watched Muriel's Wedding, got addicted to Kath and Kim and Summer Heights High (also the Einstein Factor when I was living in Thailand and had ABC - I wish they would make a British version of this quiz show).  My point is that, with a country like Australia, I will have to dig even deeper to learn new things.

I thought Queensland would be an apt starting point as, compared to Victoria or New South Wales, it's a part of Australia I know very little about.  Of course, we've all heard of the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Great Barrier Reef.  I know about Queensland's amazing climate, how important tourism is to the state and I've also vaguely heard about the Torres Strait Islanders, although I don't know why.  I guess Queenslanders have had a lifetime of being compared to Victoria and New South Wales - even the name suggests that Victoria got there first.  I get a sense that Queensland's history has been one of playing 'catch-up' with these two bigger states.  One of the first things that has become really apparant to me, in my prelimary reading, is that Queensland today is an incredibly dynamic place.  It seems to hold all the aspirations and drive of modern Australia.  Australians from other parts of the country are moving there in their thousands.  So much so, that Queensland is poised to take second place in the population stakes by the late 2020's, overtaking the older and more established communities of Victoria. 

A brief glance at today's edition of The Courier-Mail, Brisbane's main newspaper, shows me that immigration is somewhat of an issue for Queenslanders (and all Australians?).  The main newspaper article is about a group of 'boat people' from Afghanistan and Kurdistan, who've been taken on a shopping trip to the Centro Toombul shopping mall in Brisbane.  I must admit, I really hate the term 'boat people' - something about the fact that the word 'boat' is put before the fact that they are people.  The image of people floating around in a boat, not identifying with their origins, somehow negates their home culture.  They're not Afghans or Kurds, but generic people who came to Australia on a boat - as if their culture or political repression is somehow not interesting enough to be defined. 

I think it's going to be an interesting and challenging experience learning about Queensland.  I have books, movies, music lined up.  Still need to look at things like traditional recipes (I wonder if you can buy crocodile meat in London?) and I also want to listen to local radio from Brisbane, keep an eye on the newspapers and perhaps find an interesting blog.  I'll also try to follow some Queenslanders on Twitter, as I've found this a really useful way of getting an insight into the daily lives of people in the countries I'm learning about.  If you're from Queensland, please leave a comment and tell us something about what's great about your state!

I'm leaving you with a video from YouTube which shows images of Brisbane - it's (quite strangely) silent and seems to be part of a series by YouTube user pleasetakemeto



Image credits:

The image of the Queensland flag has been created for Wikimedia Commons by user Denelson83 who is male and comes from Vancouver Island.  He has contributed a lot of flag images to Wikimedia Commons, so thanks Denelson83 for sharing these with the world!

The wonderful image of Noosa River in Queensland is by a very enthusiastic flick photographer whose username is neilalderney123 - his real name is Neil Howard, he's orginally from Brisbane, but now lives in the Channel Islands.  Thanks for sharing this with us, Neil.