In 1896 the Western Australian Undersecretary for Lands dispatched surveyor Arthur Mason into the south-east towards the border with South Australia to report on the rabbit population. In fact, it was originally built as a rabbit proof fence, to stop the spread of the rabbit plague across state borders. The fence is maintained via its different states and councils to this day, at an approximate cost of 10 million dollars per year. Photo credit: ron_n_beths pics/Flickr, Thomas Austin can almost be forgiven for thinking rabbits were harmless. Get a round-up of all our stories published during the past week delivered to your email every Saturday. Today, the Rabbit Proof fence, now called the State Barrier Fence, stands as a barrier to entry against all invasive species such as dingoes, kangaroos and emus, which damage crops, as well as wild dogs which attack livestock. Australia is home to so many of these animals that they are generally considered pests. In 1930, an estimated 32,000 km of dog netting in Queensland alone was being used on top of rabbit fences. It was built across the South East section of Australia. Photo Credit. Rabbits were first introduced in Australia in 1788 for their meat, and originally bred in rabbit farms and enclosures, until one October morning in 1859, when an English settler by the name of Thomas Austin released twenty-four wild rabbits on his property so that his guest could entertain themselves by hunting. Basically, the fence has created two ecological universes – one with dingoes and one without, contributing to the demise of some native animals and the endangerment of many more. Photo Credit. In South Australia, The Dog Fence Board administers and maintains the fence. The dingo fence has stirred a long-running scientific debate: does the exclusion of dingoes have detrimental effects on ecosystems? One proposed solution to Australia’s extinction crisis is to restore populations of dingoes in areas where they have been culled or excluded. A rabbit trap along the Rabbit Proof Fence. Grey wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho in 1995/96 after a 70 year absence. The dingo fence is still actively maintained. The dingo fence originally started as a rabbit proof fence. This is one of those things that I never knew I wanted to know about. This particular project involved 26 holes which took about 30-45 minutes to drill with an auger bit. A model for how dingoes interact with other animals. A portion of the Dingo Fence in 1952 in Queensland. The fence was built in the early 1900's to keep dingoes or wild dogs out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent where sheep and cattle graze. Your business or event?