Rabbit Infestation of Australia

In 1859, an Australian man named Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits for hunting into the wild. Prior to this, Australia had no native rabbit population. By 1920, their population increased to 10 billion. This is the fastest spread ever recorded of any mammal. In 1950, Australia conducted biological warfare against them by releasing a disease called Myxomatosis to control their population. It wiped out 500,000,000 rabbits by giving them skin tumors and causing blindness, often killing them within 2 weeks.