The rabbit-proof fence

mercredi 22 septembre 2021
par agnesueur

PNG - 56.5 ko

Click on the map above to see the different fences that were built in Australia.

But why were fences built in the first place ?


A litte bit of history : When the British decided to colonize Australia, they knew they had to take a very long journey by boat.
To be able to survive such a long journey, the sailors and their guests (women and children) had to take food on board : they took some cattle for the milk, poultry (mostly hens, because they lay eggs), and rabbits, because they’re a nutritious meal and reproduce fast, so they represented an interesting source of food. However, after so many months at sea, there were A LOT of rabbits, which the crew released once in Australia. That was in the 1850s.


The problem was that rabbits had no natural predators in Australia, and since they reproduce fast, their number soon became a catastrophe for crops and plants.


The solution that was found was to build a fence to contain the rabbits to a small part of Australia. Several fences were built over time (see map).


The newly arrived British built these fences with the help of local people, the Aborigines. The mixing of population that ensued was caught in the Stolen Generation that we studied before.


Here is a true story that was made into a novel, and adapted into a movie : the Rabbit-proof fence





The documentary part of the abduction scene :

On 13 February 2008 in the Parliament House of Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologises to Indigenous Australians for laws and policies which inflicted profound grief and suffering on them and especially to those of the Stolen Generations. Kevin Rudd’s apology speech