Jaques d'Alltrades wrote in message ...
The message
from (Mike Lyle) contains these words:

But isn't this just a perfect example of what a pig's ear we've made
of things? Rabbits aren't indigenous to these islands, having been
introduced by either the Romans or the Normans (sorry, I forget which)
as a highly valuable "crop" species; [...]

The Romans introduced them, along with ground elder, big snails and a
lot of other things, and the Normans enclosed areas to farm rabbits.

I don't know what changed things, but I suspect that enough escaped to
lower the value of kept rabbits to the uneconomic and unnecessary.

As usual, it was a combination of farming practices and employment and
leisure patterns, rather than the behaviour of the animals themselves.

Even in my native Australia, the buns could have been turned to profit
instead of causing a total panic with all its attendant nasties such
as the deliberate introduction of myxomatosis.

That's a moot point which I wouldn't want to argue unless I knew a lot
more about the economics of the matter.

Australia was, and indeed is, an economy with contradictory features
-- exhibiting both high wages and under-employment, heavily populated
towns and (on some possible measures) rural underpopulation. Land use
in the countryside is particularly anomalous.

Mike.