Last century I wrote a story about the rabbit calicivirus escaping its island quarantine in South Australia. A few weeks after visiting the area in the Spring of 1995 the calicivirus jumped containment yet again and spread throughout the continent, killing hundreds of millions of rabbits. Myself and photographer, Peter Rae, were accused of being the culprits. The ABC has been seeking anecdotes about rabbits so I decided to tell my side of the calicivirus story….

Picture by RICK STEVENS

Story by JAMES WOODFORD.

In late October 1995 I was at my desk at the Sydney Morning Herald when news broke the rabbit calicivirus had escaped its quarantine on Wardang Island off South Australia and had started killing rabbits on the mainland.

As environment writer I suggested to an editor that myself and a photographer travel to Adelaide and drive to the site of the infection – an event which had momentous implications for the national environment.

We contacted the CSIRO, who were monitoring the outbreak of the disease, and informed them of our intentions.

It was a grey, hot, still day and I still remember vividly arriving at the location of the disease breakout, meeting up with CSIRO researcher Brian Cooke and being taken to see a number of dead rabbits.

The memory of their limp bodies is seared into my mind as was the fact that no-one asked us to undertake any quarantine procedures – we simply slipped through the system. I filed my story and then along with photographer, Peter Rae, began to plan the following day.

We decided to head to the heart of bunny country to meet up with a rabbit shooter at Yunta, a few hours drive to the north of where the virus had escaped Wardang Island.

Our man was a feral-looking guy who drove a rabbit-hunting mobile that looked as though it had come straight off the set of Mad Max. The hunter was mightily annoyed the virus had escaped quarantine and his story made page one of that weekend’s paper.

And in the way of newspapers that seemed to be that…a fascinating romp through South Australia, yesterday’s fish and chip wrapper. The virus spread no further and the outbreak seemed to have been contained.

A few week’s later I was working a Sunday shift when I got a call that left me feeling totally mortified. It was from the CSIRO and the virus had broken quarantine again and had jumped this time to…yes, you guessed it Yunta. The only people the CSIRO knew who had been to both the first mainland site and Yunta was us.

A few hours later a press release came out from the CSIRO fingering me directly.

The next day the story of how two Sydney Morning Herald staff had spread the disease made national headlines. Even the leader of the National Party, Tim Fischer, bought into the story and said we should have to work on the rabbit fence as punishment.

From Yunta the disease spread relentlessly across the continent – hundreds of millions of rabbits died. No-one ever confirmed whether Pete and I were truly the culprits but it was a surprisingly difficult few weeks. For months I endured every imaginable rabbit joke, from being given a copy of Watership Down to being called (hundreds of times) “bunny killer”.

There was only ever one original joke. My friend, the late page one sub-editor Andrew Macswan, came up to me one evening and said: “So Woody, about those rabbits – was it sexually transmitted?”