Plan to fight growing population of 'ineradicable' pest in WA

A biosecurity organisation is calling on the community to help maintain the population of an "ineradicable" pest growing in Western Australia.

European rabbits are partly controlled by the calicivirus, which is released annually to keep population numbers down.

But some of the rabbits in Peel Harvey have built an immunity to it.

READ MORE: State introduces Australia's toughest pokie machine regulations

The Peel Harvey Biosecurity Group (PHBG) is asking landholders to help catch European rabbits so blood testing can be done to form an immunity map.

"Biocontrols can't be used by themselves to reduce the number of rabbits, they're just not that effective," executive officer Teele Hooper-Worrell said.

"Yet, they can be part of an integrated management plan.

"Where immunity levels are low, we can integrate that as a method and we will work with our local landholders to release the virus and then follow up with some additional control methods.

"But in areas where immunity levels are high, it just wouldn't be an effective way to use it."

READ MORE: British man captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine

European rabbits populate most of the country, except for northern parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

Hooper-Worrell said the "ineradicable" pests grazed and undermined the soil, which then devastated local agriculture and impacted native animals.

"They out-compete our native animals, like the bandicoots, and they can also be what I consider an ecosystem architect," she said.

"They are choosing what trees and shrub species are able to grow and what's removed from the system.

"You only need half a rabbit per hectare to stop any native regeneration."

READ MORE: Father of missing Hawaii woman found dead in Los Angeles, police say

Rabbits cost agricultural production in Australia about $200 million each year and affect at least 304 threatened fauna and flora, according to the Victorian government.

"They're also impacting in the peri-urban centres where people have lifestyle properties and we're seeing more and more impact in our urban centres as well," Hooper-Worrell said.

Hooper-Worrell said European rabbits were constantly moving into different landscapes and their population numbers exploded seasonally each year.

"Rabbits are doing more damage than what we can even see in front of us and they're very slowly spreading into new areas and the impact that they're having will have long-term implications for the whole of Australia," she said.

"It's really important that we all work as community members and as land stewards in reducing and effectively controlling rabbit numbers across lots of different types of communities."