When a little bird confronts a cute little creature with long soft ears and a whiskery nose. deep in the Australian desert, could it be the Easter Bunny?
Turns out it’s not, but it is a creature that is so much more important to the environment all year round, rather than just one particular night.
Thirty-five years ago, in December 1991, the Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia (RFA) launched the Easter Bilby campaign to raise awareness of the damage that rabbits did and still do to the habitats of native wildlife, and to raise funds to undertake research. In 1993, in conjunction with Haigh’s Chocolates in Adelaide, the first Easter Bilby appeared on shelves with part of the proceeds donated to RFA. Before long, the concept of an Easter Bilby had spread far and wide and chocolate bilbies were as common as chocolate bunnies.
In March 1999 the Save the Bilby fund was launched to protect these endangered “eco-engineers” to support bilby conservation initiatives including a breeding program and a “bilby fence” creating a predator-free zone in Western Queensland, because of the six bandicoot species that once lived in the arid and semi-arid areas of Australia, only the bilby remains.
Despite the campaign having such an impact in those early years, and Haigh’s (and some other manufacturers) still making chocolate bilbies, it seems that awareness of the reasons behind their sale seems to have been forgotten, so this is the perfect book to once again start to build the knowledge and understanding, particularly as the effectiveness of the much-touted calicivirus is declining and rabbits are re-emerging as the destructive pests they have always been.
Through Brian’s clever text that explains how the bilby is such an asset to the environment and Gifford’s engaging illustrations that put the creature right into the child’s realm, just as teaming them with this particular time of the year did so all those years ago, young readers will start to appreciate the critical role it plays in making the arid desert somewhere for both creatures and plants to survive. Whether it’s using its tall pink straight-ups to hear what’s near or its four scritcher-scratchers to dig holes that offer shelter from the heat, the bilby is clearly an integral part of the desert interdependent ecosystem.
When the original campaign was launched, receiving a chocolate bilby for Easter was a badge of honour -this book has the potential to do the same, and more, as the importance and plight of the bilby becomes a year-round concern. Australia has lost roughly 10% of its endemic terrestrial mammals since European settlement 1788, primarily by predation from invasive foxes and feral cats, compounded by habitat loss and fire. Let’s help to keep the bilby from that list.
When a little bird confronts a cute little creature with long soft ears and a whiskery nose. deep in the Australian desert, could it be the Easter Bunny?
