Myxomatosis Report Of The Advisory Committee On Myxomatosis Chairman Lord Carrington

Myxomatosis, a viral disease of European wild rabbits, was discovered in South America in the 1890s. It was deliberately introduced in Australia and France in the 1950s and reached Britain in 1953. Within a year it had killed tens of millions of rabbits from Kent to the Shetlands. The British reaction to myxomatosis was mixed; members of the public reared on the tales of Beatrix Potter were appalled. With meat still rationed, consumers deplored the loss of a cheap and nutritious foodstuff. Many farmers, on the other hand, welcomed the rabbit's demise as a serious agricultural pest and actively spread the disease.However some lost their livelyhood through the spread of Myxomatosis, such as rough shooters who regretted the loss of prey and hatters and furriers who mourned the unavailability of the fur on which they depended. Rabbits also had champions within the 'establishment'; including Winston Churchill and the Archbishop of York, who both regarded myxomatosis as an abomination. Winston Churchill was personally influential in making its deliberate transmission a criminal offence. Even the farmers and foresters who applauded the rabbit's demise often had qualms about a disease that inflicted such a horrible death. Myxomatosis presented the authorities with difficult questions: should they try to contain the disease, encourage it, or do nothing? Should they take advantage of rabbit depopulation and try to exterminate the animal? Britain's myxomatosis outbreak has hitherto attracted little historical attention, notwithstanding parallels with other recent animal disease crises. In the first book dedicated to this subject, Peter Bartrip examines how the disease reached Britain. He argues it was not the government who was reesponsible, as many thought at the time, but instead identifies the individual who may have deliberatlely brought myxomatosis over from France. Bartrip tracks the spread of the virus throughout the country and considers the response of government and other bodies and the impact of rabbit de-population on agriculture and the natural environment. The cultural significance of myxomatosis in Britain raises topical and controversial issues relating to veterinary medicine, animal rights, the interface between human and animal health, the ethics of pest control by biological means and the politics of environmental meddling. These are important considerations if we are to learn lessons from more recent animal disease crises such as foot and mouth, BSE and H5N1 avian influenza.

This book is a plea to everyone but especially to politicians, administrators, farmers and businessmen to take conservation seriously and as a result to integrate conservation with other activities. Through research work and land management the author shows how he came to realise that conservation matters much more fundamentally than is accepted by conventional wisdom. He maintains that the significance of conservation will not be recognised until it is seen within its proper contents of time and this provides the theme of the book. The newness of conservation as an idea and its complexities still provide obstacles to understanding its real significance. In the past too much emphasis has been put on the negative and esoteric aspects of conservation. This book is important because it emphasises its positive and common-sense aspects and in so doing demonstrates that conservation should now be accepted as a major national and international objective of vital concern to everybody now and in the future.