Rabbit-Proof Fence
The Rabbit-Proof Fence (English for, rabbit safe fence '), actually but State Barrier Fence of Western Australia and today The Vermin Fence best known as a protective fence was in Western Australia, to prevent mainly rabbits (and other animals ) because to spread to the local pasture and arable land or einzuschleppen diseases. It was built in 1901-1908 and consisted of three sub- fences with a total length of 3256 km. The cost at that time amounted to 337 841 pounds sterling.
Rabbit-Proof Fence is also the international title of an Australian drama film from 2002, which came in Germany under the title Long Walk Home in the cinemas.
Background
Rabbits were in 1788 with the First Fleet, the fleet that brought the first settlers to Australia, introduced and initially kept in stables. However, let a farmer in 1859 in Victoria 24 rabbits free, in the belief that a few rabbits could do no harm, and he would feel alien by hunting rabbits.
1891, the rabbits had colonized the continent by proliferation almost completely and were first sighted in Western Australia. 1896 an official was sent to check how far the rabbit were already reached in the state. He discovered rabbits on the coast near Esperance, about 320 km west of the border with South Australia and less than 100 km east of Jerdacuttup and recommended the construction of a fence along the border with South Australia in his report. 1901 chose a royal commission, this fence from the south up to build the north coast.
The fence
The originally planned fence ran through the state of Jerdacuttup in the south to the north Wallal and had a length of about 1837 km. As "Rabbit - Proof Fence No. 1 "and the longest fence in the world he was known. Construction began in December 1901 and ended in September, 1907. Yet as early as 1902 rabbits were west of the fence viewing and planned two more fences again.
Fence No. 2 was started in 1905 in Bremer Bay in the south of the country, about 100 km west of Jerdacuttup. With a length of around 1166 km he went first to the north, was at the height of Perth, a distance of about 150 km to the west coast and then, at about the level of Kalbarri made a wide arc toward the first fence to which it in near Murchison met. Fence No.3 Also in 1905 gebaut.Zaun No. 3 began in Kalbarri, about the middle of the Australian west coast, and ran in an easterly direction for a distance of approximately 253 km almost directly on fence # 2 to.
Effects
The first fence was ultimately never a sure protection against the ingress of animals. In places, the wood of the piles was rotten, corroded the fence or were simply left open gate in the fence, so always able to penetrate animals. Especially during the First World War suffered the farmers in Western Australia under a veritable rabbit plague. They built their own fences around their land, poison used, presented a hunter or tried with tractors to destroy the caves and tunnels of rabbits. Even school children earned at that time her pocket money by hunting rabbits. Only in the south-western region in Western Australia, which was surrounded by the fences 2 and 3, the population could be kept to tolerable level since the 1920s.
For this, " rabbit inspectors " used to control that with the Australian camel, mainly in the north, or a camel cart, in the south, along the fence this inspected and maintained according to rabbits out. Camels had already proven in the construction of the fence as the best mode of transport, as they were persistent and got along for days without water. Until the 1950s, as the penetration of rabbit was successfully monitored.
Since then, the population of pathogens by means of myxomatosis, the Kaninchenpest is controlled, which reduced the importance of the fence more and more. Increases the rabbit density in an area above a certain level, can be targeted an epidemic caused by shedding of infected bait ( preferably sugar - and water-containing vegetables ), although the rabbit occurrence resets only on a lower density, because with decreasing density, the epidemic of single comes to a standstill. Unlike the fence, this method does not aim at a complete absence of rabbits, but their limitation to the smallest possible population density. The triggering of a fully successful epidemic is not possible with currently known pathogens.
The damage to the environment and agriculture, to cause the rabbit is estimated at AUD 600 million to 1 billion annually.
Reception
Doris Pilkington Garimara published in 1996 her book Follow the rabbit- proof fence. In it she processed the fate of her mother, who was a so-called half-breed child of a Aboriginefrau with a white migrant workers. The Western Australian State snatched at that time these children and their mothers brought them up in state boarding schools. 1931 her mother fled with a sister and a cousin from such a home and wandered over 1000 miles along the fence back to their homeland. The book was made into a film in 2002 by Phillip Noyce under the international title Rabbit-Proof Fence, appeared in German cinemas and on German DVD videos but under the title Long Walk Home. The soundtrack to the film composed by Peter Gabriel; a title which is named The Rabbit -proof Fence.