Why don't they eat wild rabbits in Australia? They have millions of them! The reason is surprising…
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- Опубликовано: 1 фев 2023
- I started wondering recently: “There are millions of wild rabbits in Australia, but for some reason, I’ve never heard that rabbit meat is popular there.
As an Aussie I can assure you as a kid my mum made plenty of rabbit stews, rabbits were a cheap easy food that dad would catch with ferrets.
Yep, as a kid my Dad lived on mutton and underground mutton ( rabbits ) !
i don't know much about wild rabbits in Australia, but i think if the reason is that the rabbit meat is too tough, slow cooks stew will handle that, that's always the case, but i'm not sure about the viruses they used to the rabbits but i think if it's cooked long enough the viruses will not survive.
When you say "with ferrets", do you mean he would catch both ferrets and rabbits? Or are the ferrets assisting in the hunt?
In many East coast areas where rainfall was plentiful, grass and grazing was good, the rabbits were always fat little bunnies.@@sadjester800
@@FlyingFox86They send the ferrets down the rabbit holes to flush out the rabbits
A lot of horror movies start out with a bunch of "scientists " solving a problem by releasing a modified virus.
Stories yes. Real life someone brings some cute bunny's over and released them. Or wild hogs.
@Straight Not White Man 🏳️🌈⃠ Government straight up denies that. Lol
It's still possible. Rabbits are more closely related to Humans than Bats, Pigs, or Cats, and Humans catch diseases from them, so it's dangerous to infect a giant population of Rabbits with something. They were very lucky the 1950 action didn't mutate into something that could jump into Humans. Billions of sick Rabbits were Fertile grounds for mutating germs. Before it ran it's course, I'm sure the final forms of the disease Rabbits overcame was very different from what they infected them with.
@Straight Not White Man 🏳️🌈⃠ RUclips Deleted? You may be on to something.
I remember that Myxomatoses was spread on purpose in Germany to diminish the rabbit population at least once when I was a young girl. It was absolutely horrible to see those blind rabbits hopping around and bumping into things until they just gave up and waited for death to come. In the end the population went down for only a short period.
Is anyone else absolutely shocked by the fact that Australia, of all places, didn't have anything that would eat rabbits?
They do, the rabbits probably lived in an area where predators were scarce, so their numbers got out of control.
Australia doesn't have many predators compared to a country like the US. Just a lot of venomous animals.
Nope. Australia has no medium or big cats, no foxes and rabbits are way to fast for everything else except dingos.... which don't seem to predate rabbits effectively.
Marsupials are dumb as rocks compared to most other mammals and yet they've been able to thrive on Australia despite being eradicated everywhere else except for the American possum. So an animal like a rabbit that is widespread and has had to evolve to deal with a diverse array of threats has an easy time there.
You'd think Australia of all places would be completely fine with an invasive species, considering the absolutely insane animals they have there, but I guess even Australia isn't immune to the pervasive issues invasive species cause.
Thomas Austin, like some other early settlers, had previously tried to introduce rabbits but they all died. Austin realized these rabbits were domesticated breads which didn't know how to survive in the wild. In a letter to his sister he requested wild rabbits from a wild area of the UK he was familiar with. Rabbits are not native to the UK and were introduced from the semi desert region of Spain. These are the 24 rabbits he Austin released and they had the instincts that allowed them to flourish in Australia's environment. Initially Austin employed men to protect the rabbits. 2 years later he had to employ men to kill as many as they could to save his farm. During times of hardship, the 1930's great depression being one, rabbits proved vital for the survival of poor families.
Unless you release several viruses into the population......now you’ve tainted the meat. 🙄
domesticated rabbits can thrive in midwestern areas and stuff but they are miserable in winder and require forests to help the temps raise a bit from wind
100%
Imagine that
In 1930s the poor ate rabbit a freaking delicacy
Today
That's the real reason they infected the wealthy can't have the poor eating like kings
Stories like these are why I have the mindset that if we can eat it, it's not invasive; we just aren't putting enough on our plates.
rabbit meat kept a lot of regional Australians alive during the depression years, which is why many older folk cant be bothered with it because it reminds them of tougher times when they didnt have a choice.
@@marekohampton8477 there, look, I'm showing my age. My early years were in the wheatbelt and I recall people who were born in the 30s and 40s stating that if they never had to eat rabbit again they would be happy. So it was a thing even after the 'official' depression years as well.
Rabbits are part of the reason I'm alive. I was born in the Netherlands in the Winter of '43/'44 and my dad kept domesticated rabbits. There was little food to be had and the next Winter was worse, many thousands starved to death in NL. The meat from the rabbits gave my mother enough protein that she didn't run out of milk.
Carel,do you remember when American bombers dropped food from their aircraft back in early 45 for the Netherlands?They flew over pre desegnated areas that were marked with a white cross our in the fields and unloaded tons of canned food and bread,and chocolate.
If humans don’t eat rabbits they can be exported to countries that breed alligators or Crocs for culinary purposes. Then they will be useful b
Respect to you from Brisbane , Australia .
@@sonyascott6114 I was at most one and a half then so no memory yet. My parents didn't mention US planes but they did mention Swedish ones. Sweden was neutral and negotiated with both sides to be allowed to drop food in NL.
Fuckin$25 each..at. Broken Hill butcher 8 yrs ago ,not worth that.Illegal to trap🙄🙄🤔
As a Greek, rabbits are sold in meat shops here, along with beef, pork and chicken. And I believe rabbit is considered better than chicken. There are also very tasty recipes, best one being to fry in a casserole, and in the end pour some wine and close the fire and put lemon tree leaves on it for like 10 minutes after it's done (then throw away the lemon leaves, they are not edible). Try it, it very simple and amazing. This is a very traditional old-school Cretan recipe, 100s of years old. But the local rabbits are farmed and checked, they are not wildlife, because yes they do carry disease. You must always be very careful when processing wild life hunts (i.e. do not cut yourself with the knife used to process them, or do not mix the knife you process this meat with the knives you will eat it with). But once they are cooked, they are 100% safe.
I would love to be able to hunt and eat rabbits with a precision airgun. I used to have one (now it is stolen), but only shot balloons with it ha ha (not allowed to hunt with air rifle in Greece, you need smoothbore weapons only).
You can clean the knife after processing..... and you just cut very carefully and deliberately.
Rabbits are the third most common pet in many countries after cats and dogs. To us, they're our precious family members, not food, just like dogs and cats are to some people. So if you them you're no different than those who hunt and kill dogs and cats for food!
How common was goat meat in Greece? And what's most popular animals in Greece by choice of meats ?
@@try2justbe In France, we eat rabbit even if people have rabbits as pets, it is no problem. Farmers raise rabbits, chickens, pigs, cows, goats and sheep that everyone eats... except vegetarians and vegans of course.
Sounds yummy. But yes, wild rabbits do tend to carry tularemia, which is the worst thing.
My grandmother who is 96 years of age grew up on a farm in rural NSW in the 1930s- 1940s and the family lived on rabbit stews because it was a cheap source of meat , she and her sisters used to go out and set the traps . They also grew their own vegetables.
When I lived in Perth the local butcher had rabbits, wild caught for five bucks a piece. Used to eat them often. He also butchered roos and the meat was a third the price of beef and in my opinion better. Went back six years later and that butcher was gone and the new butcher had rabbits for 25 dollars a piece and roo meat twice the price of beef. My brother in law used to trap rabbits on his property and eat them all the time, they were good meat, not what this video claims as tough and inedible.
Likely food quality inspection regulations had been introduced, even possible the butcher was gone for not complying. If getting wild meat, hygiene and disease risk needs considering. Hunters often have little conscience and some of the poor/risky meat they portray as quality shows this. In NZ TV programs demonstrate this, stinking pissy old animals "harvested" (these introduced invasive animals are serious environmental pests) and then delightfully cooked as part of the show and declared gourmet. A spin off reality show could be themed about how to make a dirty old boot become a cooking show prize winner.
Depends on how old they are . People claim ostriches are tough , too, but they live to be 70 years old and they wouldn't butcher the ones still laying eggs and producing young birds... I have no idea how long rabbits can live...
I've had tough and stringy (wild) rabbit on several occassions, depends on the age of the rabbit and how you cook it. For me it has to be stewed until it falls off the bone. Most butchers shops in Vic carried a bit of (cheap) rabbit back in the 60/70's but it was never a big seller here.
@@sneeringimperialist6667 We have varying hares in Alaska and they are all good no matter how old they are. Looking it up rabbits in the wild live about two years.
It don't matter rabbit roo or cattle if it's a bad season it a very tough chew
40+ years ago we raised rabbits and dad sold rabbits for meat. My little sister was always very picky about what she ate, the family joke was that she thought chickens had four legs until she was 8 years old because we had fried rabbit much more often than chicken. She never appreciated it.
That's funny. I fed my daughter kangaroo meat then once she finished I sang the Skippy tv show jingle. If look's could kill. hehe.
My little sister was told it was "prairie chicken." 😆
My great grandfather was a Rabbitoh in Sydney back in the depression. Rabbits in many areas are no longer there, calicivirus wiped many out.
Akubra hat actually recently had to start importing skins for their hats for the first time.
lots of people do eat wild rabbits here in Australia, I have a few times and its not bad. It's just not everyone everywhere all the time. But many prefer to think of bunnys as pets.
Free food
No issues with eating the rabbits that have all been subjected to the man-made viruses?
@@raizt1596 do you know half of the stuff they put in your supermarket food.🤣
@@raizt1596 what? Please elaborate.
My friends and I got kicked out of the boy scouts for making rabbit stew. We trapped them on a farm adjacent to the park we were camping in; we got the farmer's permission first and gave him a few after we finished. The reginal scout masters came around and asked where we got the rabbit stew, my buddy said _"We found them in those wrappers."_ and pointed a stack of hides with his breaking knife.
The shat themselves. They called our parents to come and get us (we weren't close to home) Our folks all got there around the same time and my dad asked the rangers about charges. _"No charges. They break any laws. It all them."_ he said pointing at the regional f#cks.
We all got letters from the national office ending our association with BSoA. The only truth in the charge report was the location of the jamboree. I had just made Life and was planning my Eagle project. I've hated that organization ever sense.
I hear you. Good for you. They have forever tarnished their name. When I was a lad back in the 50's the Boy Scouts were about being handy in the woods . My ,how things have changed . Bet the farmer appreciated some good protein.
@nautifella
You were better off without the Boy Scouts. They literally suck so bad.
@@jeffersondavis2530 He sure did. This was in the 70s before the BSA went to hell. The farmer even wrote a letter to the National HQ to get us reinstated.
@@asleepyb0i400 Today, absolutely. Back in the 70s they were still pretty good. My troops were all military brats. And our scoutmasters were all active duty military.
My first scout master was a US Army Ranger Captain and my last (only had two) was a USAF survival instructor.
We learned some shit.
just think, if you would have instead sodomized each other, the BSoA would have been happy with you
Behind every disaster is an expert.
Behind every comment there's an expert
@@James-kv6kb
Behind every opinion is an A$$#ole
@@James-kv6kb just about every environmental disaster involving animals getting out of control has been the result of some supposed expert saying " what could go wrong"
@@dalekimball8846 ok that's a little better than what you said before we're starting to understand what you're trying to convey
@@James-kv6kb that's the first comment I've made but if it helps all the better.
When I was a kid I used to trap rabbits and also used ferrets with nets over rabbit burrows. I've caught a lot in hollow logs and in burrows under trees too, using ferrets and also putting my hand up logs, luckily no snakes. Some shooting as well. I used to put my fox terrier into blackberries and he'd catch some, or they'd be shot when they ran out and away a bit. I even crawled about 30 yards through blackberries, in a bit of a tunnel, and dragged out a rabbit from a burrow my dog had been frantically digging at. As a kid I wandered across paddocks and a couple of times I was quick enough to just pounce on a rabbit as it sat in its 'squat' which is just a hidey place, usually in a grass tussock. I used to catch, kill and clean the bunnies before taking some around on a covered platter to sell in my area. Made good money as a young kid. I sold their skins too as my dad shot foxes for their skins, before greenies ruined it (fur trade) and foxes started killing more native wildlife again. I spent nearly every weekend fishing, shooting and hunting rabbits. They are still eaten, bit tough but okay. I'm in my mid fifties.
Growing up in the 50s, in the UK, my mum regularly cooked rabbit stew. It was my favourite. We compared it to chicken, but preferred rabbit, as it had more taste. Just had to look out for small bones.
Rabbit was the staple meat eaten by poorer people. The 'Rabbitto" ( the man who caught rabbits and sold them door to door) was a regular in the neighbourhood I grew up in. Whilst the government tried biological means to control the rabbits , many people went out and shot their own. Often an area would be cleared and the Rabbitto would reintroduce rabbits to the area. There were some predators, dingos and wedge tail eagles were quick to pick them off. It was the environment that they adapted too. They seem to manage the floods and fires but droughts knocked them around. A low rainfall winter and subsequent low grasslands reduces the local population, kangaroos are more adaptive.
Rabbits were introduced into Victoria not NSW. As the rabbit and human populations grew the residents actually introduced foxes. This was to develop the sport of fox hunting and assumed they would control rabbit numbers in the mean time. This became a major ecological disaster as the foxes found the native species ; who had no genetic history with foxes were easier prey.
I never remember rabbit being tough meat, everyone liked it.
Rabbit meat comes out nice and tender from a slow cooker that's been in for 3/4 hours.
I wondered where the South Sydney NRL club got their nickname "Rabbitohs" from. Now I know!
I'd rather have rabbit than chicken any day
I remember them when I lived in Melbourne, they carried a bunch of rabbits and sold them for 1 - 2 dollars a piece (in the 60's...).
Actually I had a mate at work that went hunting rabbits with a ferret in his spare time and then sold them at the workplace.
In USA I raised NZ White rabbits and ate them. Delicious like high quality chicken breast.
As an Australian (and a shooter) I can tell you that a fair bit of this video is BS! I eat rabbit and my father eats rabbit, but I don't know anyone else that does. Rabbit can be purchased through butchers, but It has just become unpopular as a meat choice since the mass availability of more mainstream choices. There is no industry pushing the sale of rabbit meat. It is still popular with some of the European communities, but for generational Australians, after the 1960s it was seen as a poverty choice. You might not be able to afford lamb/beef/pork/chicken, but Mum or Dad could always shoot rabbit. It's decline in popularity is basically tied to the availability of expendable family income. Also in states like Queensland it is illegal to keep rabbits so there is no backyard rabbits; even as pets. As for it's eatability, it all depends on how it is cooked. Rabbit has almost no fat, so to prevent it from being dry some form of fat needs to be added in the cooking process. Bacon fat is a popular choice. Alternatively slow cooking produces good results.
I reckon it tastes like crab to be honest, but crab tastes better
I had rabbit quite a few times when i was young, and we were poor. Let me just say that when you say the meat is dry... oh boy, it is D.R.Y ... science should look into how rabbit is so dry it literally defies the laws of physics..., but it will stop you from starving, if your teeth don't wear down first!!
@@mystikmind2005 That's funny! I have a friend that grew up on a farm that was fairly isolated. She told me that when she was young her mother would cook rabbit and tell the kids that it was chicken. They all hated 'chicken'. When she was about 10 was the first time she went to a school friends for a sleepover, and they had chicken for dinner. She couldn't believe this moist and delicious meat was the same thing, it was like a religious revelation, and just came to the conclusion that her mother was a terrible cook. It was still a few years before she finally found out that it was rabbit.
@@andrew5792 Hahahaha.... well my mother WAS a terrible cook, so the rabbit she cooked was double jeopardy!! lol
I'm a Canadian and where I live we have two kinds of rabbits that are naturally hear the Cottontail and the jackrabbit. When I catch them I skin them, butcher them and then I marinate them and barbecue sauce and marinade for a day before I cook them on the barbecue. The meat is a bit tough but I like my meat a little tougher
While on a deployment to Tasmania in 1976 I had an opportunity to visit a farm on the north end of the island. While there the farmer was shooting rabbits at night. He sold the pelts in town and the meat was also taken to town and sold to shops where it was later consumed by diners.
0:47 Wait, you’re telling me that out of all of hundreds of Australia’s dangerous species, cute little bunnies don’t have predators to keep them in check?
Sounds like absolute BS
@@BitoshiNakanoti only foxes and wild cats mainly ,but the foxes are shot at night using spot lights ,because they kill to many newborn lambs.
They can retreat into their burrows and are generally evasive, making them hard prey to catch.
@BitoshiNakanoti we just don't have many predatory animals, introduced feral cats and foxes, and the Dingo! Not bs your just ignorant
catch them with traps...@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana
Emu's could be hired to deal with the problem. They were able to defeat the Australian Army so they can deal with a few hundred million rabbits.
It was the cost of ammunition that caused us to give up culling them.
They cannot kill Emus, Cats , or Rabbits, but they catch a Crocodile 🐊.
Mount frickn laser beams on there heads. With target identifying software. Rabbit problem solved.
That long a war with that large a population would doom the Emus. The Rabbits would rapid evolve into either a Giant that could defeat an Emu, or develop group defense that could counterattack and win with sheer numbers, or most likely, develop superior speed and mobility the Emu couldn't match. Using Biological war methods is stupid and risky, Humans are more closely related to Lagomorphs than say, even toed Ungulates like Cattle and Pigs, and still diseases mutated and jumped from them to Humans, diseases that kill Rabbits could mutate at any time and jump to the Human population there. That hemorrhaging disease could mutate and have Australians bleeding out. Oh well, too late now.
@@jonathancummings6400 Actually you are wrong. Rats for instance, uncontrolled have left them to become bigger and stronger because of food waste and lack of population control. Mankind has been eating rabbits for tens of thousands of years so mutation in the human genome if we eat them en masse is not going to happen. People have become doey eyed over rabbits and a bit snobby too. Same with deer,left uncontrolled they eat all the veggies and green foliage. Venison is really tasty and with some cranberry sauce it knocks the socks off me in the taste department.
My Grandpa was a hunter of rabbits and fed his 6 children and wife during the Great Depression . That sweet ,kindly man said it had to have a couple of "freezes " before he would take the Beagles out . I ate at his table a few times and rabbit was served with mac & cheese . Later I read that rabbits have no fat and are all protein. I guess you could eat nothing but rabbits and die if you didn't consume some fat.
I hope that wonderful man is out with his beagles now that he is on the other side.
My dad was a teenager during the great depression and lived in rural OK. No dad, two brothers, and a mother. He, being the oldest, had to provide for the rest of the family. He told me he ate squirrels every way they could be cooked! Needless to say, we never had squirrel meat at home!
yeah, its called rabbit starvation, gotta have some fat and other nutrients, gotta eat more than just daffy and the gang.
@@feralbigdog daffys a duck
A somewhat non-Answer. “They” are currently telling us that we will soon be eating bugs of many sorts. So, wild rabbit 🐇, unless they have a Mad Cow toxicity, are edible. For me, certainly before I eat 🦗 crickets.
@Richard pQuette That's not really quite "cricket" of you is it ol boy?
Myxomatosis, I remember this disease well. It infected rabbits and eventually killed them, on the farm I used to see them sitting outside their burrows, blind with puss coming out of their eyes. No way anyone would think of eating that, or even let the dogs near them. Don't know what effect it would have on foxes, badgers and raptors that ate them.
Before the release of the anti-rabbit viruses, rabbits used to be an important food source, especially in country areas and were often called 'underground mutton'. Kangaroo meat is available for human consumption but it isn't popular and generally isn't easily available. Other types of meat that perhaps should be available are camel, emu and even corcodile.
Virus is safe for humans, but, 1080 and pindone are used because rabbits developed resistance.
These poisons are real danger.
May be captured rabbit should be kept alive for few days, and if no any illness sympthoms develop, it can be eaten.
@@frenne_dilley emus are not protected, it's even legal to poison them with strychnine in water, which also kills a lot of kangaroo.
Of course, if they are problem for agriculture, better to shoot or trap them and eat them, and also eat their eggs.
But, farmers are so greedy.
Wild camels are feral in Australia, you can shoot them no problems. Dont know why you would think otherwise ...
Got that wrong. crocks and snakes are protected, camels are feral and can be shot any time. @@frenne_dilley
Yep, as a kid my Dad lived on mutton and underground mutton ( rabbits ) !
I'm in the Bay Area, CA and I grew up occasionally eating wild rabbit that a step grandpa would hunt. I've had farmed rabbit and it's nothing special but wild rabbit is DELICIOUS. it's kinda hard to explain because it's texture is similar to dark chicken meat but it's just more robust in flavor, it tastes like the forest whereas the farmed ones taste like nothing. It just tastes rich and sweet and a little mineral...and it's so good. Aussies need to put down their meat pies and embrace wild rabbit. Then again no one has ever declared Australia as a food destination, I've known quite a few aussies and from what they explain the food sucks.
Most Americans are brainwashed by cartoons. Bugs Bunny and Donald Ducks won’t be on the table.
😂 That's a very good description indeed. You have lyrical talent...
We did eat farmed rabbits in the USA in the 1960's. These were in the school and military lunches, sold at supermarkets and served in some restaurants. A little different than chicken in taste, but about the same texture as chicken pieces.
In Denmark a wild rabbit is traditionally put in buttermilk for 24 hours before cooking. The buttermilk softens the meat, and the taste is amazing.
Thanx, you answered two questions that I had for some years.
I've eaten lots of rabbits. To say they are tough and not good is BS. One of the best meats there is. Don't think this guy knows what he is talking about.
After the devastating hurricane in Miami, Florida in 1992, we had nothing to eat however, my father had been raising some rabbits that survived the storm. I asked my dad, "what are we going to eat?" He replied, "rabbit, for breakfast, lunch and dinner!" They were delicious fried up! We were without electricity for two weeks. We went through lots of rabbits. My dad was so smart!
What, human flesh wasn't good enough for yall ?, picky kids.
What's up doc ?
@@thatone8085 you for dinner. W/carrot garnish.
HURRICANE ANDREW
@@captainamericaamerica8090 Correct!!
'Why its just a little bunny! One rabbit stew coming right up '!
You'd think they would have given up the bio weapon idea the first time it didn't really help.
When asked about his math skills Buggs Bunny replied “ there’s one thing us rabbits can do is multiply “.
Living in a rural area in the 1950's. We kids use to get up in the morning, take a rifle and go out in the pedic, shoot a couple of rabbits, and take it home to mum to cook for diner. Than we went to school.. Government bureaucracy put an end to that.....
In my Airforce days, late 1970s, the chowhall at Tyndall AFB, Fl. served fried rabbit a few times a week. I loved it.
I also grew up going squirrel hunting with Dad, so yeah, we ate Tree Rats. Good eating! We ate some animals that later became protected species. Great Woodpecker, Robins and Gopher Tortoise were my favorites. But cannot hunt them now.
The wild cottontail rabbits of the us are excellent eating. The problem here is hunters losing access to good hunting grounds because of urban and suburban sprawl.......safety zones have taken a lot land use away over the years. This is also the reason for the over-population of deer and wild turkey in many areas. It also leads to increase in coyote numbers in close proximity to people due to the abundance of prey.
Late reply, but I find it bemusing that the “oh, what a cute little bunny, we can‘t harm them” folks have resulted in houses encroaching coyote and so-called wildlife territory, resulting in coyotes attacking dogs and cats. Environmentalism is about saving the environment, not disrupting it because you like little bunnies (and put out every fire in a forest, but that’s another topic!).
@@advancetotabletop5328 What's the alternative though? The vast majority of fires are caused by humans, and due to extensive logging trees are not mature enough to survive them.
Growing up I recall having rabbit for dinner a couple of times a week. Some of my earliest memories are of hunting rabbits with my father when he was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton California. He would hunt rabbits a couple of times a week and my mom would fix it for dinner the same night. This was in late 50's to early 60's and I was 5 to 6 years old. Unfortunately this all ended once he got stationed at Lake Mead Naval Air Station in Las Vegas in 1962. I have had rabbit only a few times since, eapecially when I wad stationed in Germany in the mid 1970's. My older sisters and I often are on the lookout for places that have rabbit on the menu but it is limited here in Vegas or the cost is too high when compared to good cut of prime rib.
We gr
We grew up very poor, my father had a jo but not enough pay, so we hunted rabit. Smiles. Good old days
@@flowerenki9818 same here. My parents were Missouri Farm folks and Great Depression era children. My father hunted rabbits as a kid just to put food on the table to feed his mom and sister because my grandfather disappeared at the start of the depression. I believe he stayed a Marine after WW2 was because it was the only stable thing he ever knew. Back then being in the Military was not like it is today as my father earned less a month than I did in the mid 70 and my sons earned more than 4 times a month from 2002 to 2014 than I did.
I hunted rabbits all the time while stationed in Las Vegas. The surrounding desert is full of both ordinary rabbits (“bunnies” that are quite edible and tasty) and jackrabbits (not really edible at all but so abundant they’re hunted as vermin)
@@santamanone when my dad was station at Lake Mead Naval the rabbits were not safe to eat because of a rabies out break among Jack Rabbits at the time. As a kid we hunted Jack's because they were a pest and cotton tails were only in the mountains or on protected lands by Lake Mead. That was in the early to mid 60's.
Rabbit was a popular protein source from around the Great Depression up to the 1960s. It is still eaten today in both wild and farmed varieties but not as popular as it used to be.
It's also expensive where I live ive seen it as high as 40 dollars per rabbit
Starts at 2:20
Didn't expect the insane amount of viral warfare in this video.
Because it's DUCK SEASON!!!
Good one
Wabbit season!!!
@@royr1016 Wabbit Season!
@@royr1016 Wabbit Season!
@@royr1016 shoot him now ! shoot him now!
Rabbits are good eating. And, they're easy to clean and prep.
Thanks. I started my rabbitry just a few weeks ago. As spring gets here I plan on breeding them and expanding the operation
'Why don't they eat wild rabbits in Australia?'
You can only eat so many of the buggers.
"The rabbits didn't have natural enemies in Australia."
Aight Aussies the gig is up. You don't actually have a bunch of murder snakes and spiders. You were just trying to scare us.
We were wondering when you guys would figure it out. Well it was nice while it lasted
Don't forget about the dingos. 🐺
I've never seen a spider eat a rabbit!
snakes don't eat much.
"Absolute record for the breeding of mammals on our planet." You may have failed to mention Homo sapiens.
Agree!
banbury... my thoughts exactly.
H-sapiens, the most destructive and dangerous of all pests.
Listen to the to the self hating eco fascists, Be part of the solution ( not genocide sorry ) or shut up.
First virus is released to kill rabbits. Now Coronavirus is there to kill more humans. Nature takes its revenge back! Human population is also exploded throughout the continents so should we kill humans
We only just now qreached 8 billion
I lived in Australia for 25 years, I ate wild rabbits, you don’t see them in Western Australia, but plenty of outback people eat them in the eastern states,so do they in Tasmania. Local tavern near me often had them on the menu . Love em
We do have plenty of rabbits here in WA. I hunt them for food sometimes, and they're not too bad for eating. We also have one rabbit farm that supplies butchers around Perth, I have bought these farmed rabbits too but they are usually frozen when you get them because people don't buy enough of them for the butchers to justify keeping fresh ones in stock. And yes, they're expensive.
Plenty of bunnies in WA. I work 25 ferrets 3 to 4 times a week. There's bloody plenty
Because ther is an fence that stops them
@@steffenrosmus9177 that don't stop em I average 100 per week. Ferretting
can walk 5 minutes away from my house and there is rabbits. they are everywhere in w.a
They do make great hats , thanks Akubra.
And then Someone came up with the bright idea to release cane toads there.
I remember seeing rabbit for sale in the grocery store where my mother shopped in the 1950s in Michigan. They also had brains, tongue, tripe (cow's stomach), kidneys etc. This was a normal grocery store in a "middle class" area.
They still sell rabbit here in PA sometimes.in the local grocery store.
I have lived in many places in the US, you would be amazed what kind of off the wall stuff is still for sale in stores in different areas. And sweet Jesus, don't go to an international or Asian market! There is still one jar of eyeballs I had nightmares about. LOL
What's strange about that? It's still like that in South Africa.
Seen rabbit for sale at supermarkets in Miami. Supermarkets tend to cater to the community it serves.
@@hopscotch30 Perhaps she believe that Michigan resides in Australia !!! LOL
When my Dad was a boy in Oklahoma, you only hunted wild rabbits in the winter, never in warmer months, due to the parasites they carried in the summer.
Why not thoroughly cook them though? Wouldn't that kill the parasites?
It’s not even internal parasites people see. It’s scares from those flies that use animals to lay eggs in.
It’s not even internal parasites people see. It’s scars from those flies that use animals to lay eggs in.
Rabbit only in the months with an "r" in the name. Here in Arizona we also leave out April and September.
@@thehoneybadger8089 Same for squirrels, only in months with an "R". Bot Fly parasites. We called the parasites wolves as a kid, I'm not sure why.
*The reality is that in many poor countries, people don't have enough to eat and it would be good if these rabbits breed a lot in those countries.*
rabbits really just said i have no enemies
It's not wabbit season...It's duck season!
I season them before cooking. Thats the only season you need to worry about.
Rabbit is available at your local butchers, although he may have to get it in for you. All the rabbit I have eaten, has been trapped or shot by me, or my father, or other relations and friends. It is not hard to pick a healthy bunny before squeezing the trigger. Rabbit meat is very low fat, easy to cook and makes a nice treat.
During the Great Depression, rabbit was a common cheap source of meat, and in the cities, the 'Rabbito' was always busy selling his wares. There was a whole industry based on trapping and sending rabbits in refrigerated railway carriages to the cities to feed the poorer end of town.
When my dad was courting my mum, he would ride his bicycle to her place, and always turn up with a couple of pair of bunnies. He would then shoot another couple of pair on the way back home. Always kept the cook happy.
Wild rabbit is better than domesticated rabbit. $20 for a wild rabbit is rediculous thougj
There’s nothing tough about a wild rabbit I promise you. One of my favorite game animals.
Wild rabbit meat was very popular here in Northern Ireland then its popularity start to fall from the 50s and basically nearly untouched in the 80s due to myxomatosis was released on the rabbit population they have now built immunity and numbers are growing and rabbit is slowly becoming popular again. Hunters is selling them to butchers hotels and so on and a lot of people who go to the gym is buying rabbit meat here due to them being a lean meat
News, my Uncle made a living off the sale of Rabbits, he’s now passed. He had a “circuit” catching rabbits, chilling or freezing them and delivering them to butchers and restaurants, but the ever decreasing price of chicken drove him out of business. In the Great Depression the Rabbit got the name of “Underground Mutton”. The anti rabbit measures have been so successful that hat makers now import rabbit fur to make felt.
The Navy used to serve rabbit meat on our ship. It's a little tough and stringy, but not bad. At first, I thought it was day-old chicken before someone told me it was rabbit.
I, for one, welcome our new fluffy overlords.
I'm sad because in Kenyan very rural poor without water, roads, or hospital villages we used to hunt rabbits from morning to evening on weekends, and only caught one or two-which was the only meat we could afford throughout my childhood, adolescence, and part of my adulthood.
Okay?
Release the rabbits, they’d breed like rabbits 🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
Maybe if u didn't hunt them "morning to evening" and gave them enough time to breed and populate u will catch more 🤔
Maybe if u come from a rich country you don’t understand hunger and desperation 😢
@@naidoo307 didn't come from a rich country, nor am I rich. Just know how to keep the ecosystem around me in balance and live in harmony with my surroundings, not over hunt or exploit my environment for profit and greed.
Stay strong 💯🙏
Wild Rabbits are sold in numerous (not all) Australian supermarkets and by many independent butchers. How do I know this? Because I and many other licensed operators supply them with wild caught Rabbits. You can also get wild goat (rangeland Goat), Deer, Buffalo , pork all harvested from the wild.
Sounds like rabbit should be a local main stay. Possibly large traps then make dog food for export.
@@douglaspefferd.c.2988 Rabbit is a delicatesse here in mid-Europe, seems like a waste to give it to dogs. It is actually surprisingly versatile and there are a lot of traditional recipes for it, so far I prepared it Greek style as a Stifado, Italian style as a white ragout served as a pasta sauce and Bohemian style with cabbage and dumplings.
That lazy "solution" always backfires. Australia released frogs to solve a problem and that backfired terribly aswell.
The explosion of rabbits in australia is where the phrase of reproducing like rabbits comes from
the main reason the big stores don't sell wild rabbits is that they are afraid that if someone gets sick are lawsuits but with careful inspections and the proper cooking/storing methods there should not be any problems. we have the same problem with wild game here in NS Canada
We used to have squirrel and gravy with eggs for brekfast.We had rabbit and potatoes with some veggies for supper.
add beavers to make a lush water environment. This would help areas of Australia immensely.
And here I thought cockroaches, rats/mice and pigeons were the only creatures immune to human eradication.
Sounds like a covid story for rabbits!
That's because the gov treats us as pests
@@SHANEO144 Very true!
No one thought that releasing viruses could be a bad idea?
Bad karma.,
Fried rabbit was on the Sunday dinner table right along with fried chicken when my father's family from Kansas got together every week. A good rabbit stew is also very delicious. I used to hunt jackrabbits, that's some very tough meat but if it's ground up with equal parts of pork sausage it makes great hamburgers.
Plenty of Aussies eat rabbit regularly. My family eats wild rabbit 3-4 times a week, caught with ferrets and dogs.
Back in the 1980s my grandfather used to trap wild rabbits to sell to local shops.
More recently, my local supermarket, one of the two major national chains, used to sell whole rabbit carcasses (and camel for a short period) until about a year ago. It was expensive, though, at about AUD$18 each.
They are ridiculously expensive all things considered.
Aussie hats were made of rabbit... but it's hard to compete with cheaper imports...yep used to eat on the farm .. rabbit stew saved a lot of people in the great depression..🇦🇺👍
I buy rabbit at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. Sometimes I can get a hare. I usually cook them in dry white wine with mushrooms, herbs and bacon or speck and serve with rice or couscous. A pair of rabbits stewed will feed six. Anyone who has a grandparent raised on a farm will eat rabbit. During the Great Depression I’m told you could buy a pair of rabbits from rabbitohs at Flinders Street station for sixpence a pair. Pennyless country people would catch rabbits and bring them to Melbourne to sell.
Btw, Australia’s famous Akubra hat is made of a rabbit fur felt.😊
How Long Did It Take To Count Them All ???
I'm Aussie and have eaten rabbit many times....I have family in the country though. Also alot of Maltese Australians eat it. I dated a girl who's nonna cooked rabbit stew and it was awesome
You should do a video on the introduction of the cane toad into Australia...another disaster...
my older brother put out rabbit boxes (traps) on my mom and pops land growing up.we had rabbit but was not a regular meal.he would get up early in mornings and go out and check them before school.still remember opening refrigerator and seeing bowl with rabbit meat soaking in water.(to draw the blood out). knew gonna have rabbit that evening.
You gotta love that this all started with one guy.
In Australia used to eat rabbits. My father grew up on it. I love it in a pie. People have been conditioned not to eat rabbits. And foreigners here do not eat them. I shoot a lot but lately another release of calesi virus has knocked ther numbers down. No the rabbits are no infected and not tough. Use it to replace chicken. It is a little lean so use oil to make it easier to cook.
When I was a child in England in the early '50s, some restaurants would try to pass off rabbit as chicken (then an expensive delicacy). I enjoyed rabbit pie and regret that in California I can only get hold of frozen Chinese rabbit occasionally and it is rather lacking in flavour.
I am from the uk. A pub near where l use to work made their own rabbit pies from rabbits hunted locally. With nice mashed potato,gravy and a nice pint of ale it was a perfect combination.
California has rabbit hunting opportunities.
go to an actual butcher shop and ask
Don't eat anything from China-it is so unsafe. Search on youtube for videos on why food in China is toxic and you will see what I mean.
Buy some live rabbits, then slaughter qnd butcher them yourself
Here in Australia during the depression rabbit meat was used by a lot of the population to survive the hardships of that particular era
So the video addressed why it's not commercially available for grocery stores, but they gave no reason why it couldn't be hunted as a food source. Sounds like it would be a great option for hunters wanting to get some easy game meat.
In Quebec we do go hare hunting but it is a side game (rabbits and hares are different). The most popular small game beside migratory birds is grouse because hares are very difficult to see. But if we happen to see a hare, it is a plus. The best time to hunt them is after the first snow. The snow melts and hares are white on dark ground so they are very easy to spot. At that time, for some reasons they get out, jump allover the place during the day as if it is meant that way to be harvested...
This is what happens when you don’t grow up with Buggs Bunny cartoons.
but we did
my rabbit was watching this with me and found out his a rare rabbit
I'm from the US Southeast & when I was little in the 50's & 60's I used to go out with Mama to set her traps & check them the next day. She made a Stew sometimes, but mostly fried them. That was some good eating! So was squirrel! I actually preferred rabbit to chicken! It was never tough nor stringy! After I married an Army man & finally returned home, I asked Mama if she would trap one & fix it for us, but she said she couldn't b/c they had cysts throughout the meat & not safe to eat. I was so sad to hear that!
My father ate "Underground Mutton" when he was a kid (1940's) it was a staple.
But as for the viruses they released on the mainland,
They didn't release the virus in Tasmania.
That is where most of Rabbit meat comes from in Australia.
When I done my butchers apprenticeship (1980's) bunny's were 99c each.
Today it's more like $40+ each..
high cost！it is good business to hunting the dumb bunny for selling .😀
@@jiezhao8779 nice....
Like wild pigs in Texas. There are millions of them. You can sometimes see them out grazing along the freeways of major cities - all sizes, all colors, including spotted. Some weigh hundreds of pounds.The other day, I was driving on a freeway and saw a group of about twenty grazing along the freeway grass. I immediately slowed down because I didn't know if one might dart out onto the freeway like a deer. However, they are intelligent and seem to avoid traffic. Except for humans, and maybe coyotes for smaller ones, they seem to have no natural predators.
BBQ everyday! why pay for meat when you can supply yourself every weekend lol
@@jinbiaoma4808 No one should be hungry in Texas. Even the city bayous and drainage ditches have giant fish. But you would have to be hungry to eat giant carps and gars.
Wild pigs? Texas is so lucky. That's like free pork.
@@walden6272 Yes, but unfortunately I'm a vegetarian. People actually come other states to hunt them.
I heard the wild pigs are a big pest problem in Texas. Is the local government trying to develop an export market for the meat, like Australia did for the Kangaroo? Wild Boar steak is my go to for Bbq in the summer in Canada.
Imagine if they just decided to use the rabbit meat for school lunches. It would be better than the mystery meat served in many schools
they NEED TO MAKE ALOT OF LUCKY CHARMS
I’ve eaten plenty of rabbits. My father in law was a very keen ferreter. We used ferrets to drive the rabbits from burrows into nets for trapping. What’s being missed here is that without rabbits one of Australia’s greatest brands, Akubra, wouldn’t exist without rabbits. Their fur was used for the felt that makes the iconic Akubra hat.
The skins were boiled up to make rabbit skin glue an important ingredient in artists gesso. I once built a fortepiano and glued it together with rabbit glue ,it is very strong.
In Canada thay used to send a ferret down the rabbit hole and catch the rabbit and cook and eat them..I often hunted rabbits for food my dad. One time the ferret flushed out a skunk.
Rabbit meat is like chicken meat, very smooth.
9 rabbits go into every Slouch Hat for the ADF.
@@harryjackson4759 The rabbits were that thick we had to pull a couple out of the burrow before the ferret could fit in.
I grew up eating wild rabbit, when the government released the calicivirus that was pretty much the end of that. The poorist people like my family were already paranoid about myxomatosis but didn't really have much of a choice when it came to the meat they could put on the table, if it wasn't ground offal that's basicly dog food and tastes even worst, the odd rooster or hen that stopped laying, it was rabbit we trapped or shot. The whole thing was just one big ''screw you dirt farmer, go hungry'' from the government.
The family across the street from where I grew up were Shooters, I used to watch him skin rabbits by the dozen, he’d have rabbit, too and I think fox (?) pelts hanging in his shed.
I loved playing late with my friends and staying for dinner eating their rabbit stew.
I fed my family on roos as it was cheap and easy to source.
_You can quickly solve the problem with crows, hawks, eagles, and owls_
I'm a retired policeman from Belgium. I've eaten wild and domesticated rabbits all my life. Up until 2000, there were plenty of rabbits around : later on, diseases killed most of them. When I had a night shift, we sometimes found some road kill rabbits : I took them home, butchered and cooked them (don't believe the video : wild rabbits are very good eating). There's one story from the golden rabbit years that I was reminded of at my retirement party : a certain policeman found a roadkill rabbit, tossed it in the car behind the driver's seat and forgot about it. They all said it was me, but I highly doubt that 😇
But these Australian rabbits has virus in them
You eat rabbits? Strange. What does it taste like?
Roast them and the virus is gone.
@@walden6272 I'm Egyptian and rabbits here are well known in our dishes and it tastes sooooo good, especially its gravy
@@walden6272 Pakistanis and Aghans eat rabbits like you guys eat chicken
I have never understood why they haven't produced a devastating disease for rats.
Bad idea, might pass onto humans since rats are everywhere. Could mutate to something worse than Covid
I think in Europe the brown rat was introduced to replace or push away the black rat that was a host to a lot of diseases.
The title of this video could be a new hit for Katy Melua
Seems like the dingo would be a natural enemy of the rabbit
I grew up eating wild rabbit. Nothing really wrong with them, as long as they don't have worms etc. If you cook them with bacon strips that adds a bit of fat and makes them even more tasty. There aren't the thousands of rabbits everywhere like there were when I was a kid.
Fun fact: The 'Rabbit Proof Fence' was/is the longest fence in the world. Very run down now though and full of gaps.
How did you check for worms and how did you feel after eating a rabbit with worms?
BUILD THE FENCE!