In the year 1859, Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits into the bush near his farm in the southern Australian colony of Victoria. His aim was to have a regular supply of familiar game to hunt. By the end of the 19th century, the descendants of those rabbits numbered in the tens of millions. Infesting an area nearly the size of Europe, they devastated crops and turned entire regions into wasteland. In the process, they drove many of their marsupial competitors to the brink of extinction.