As late as the 1950s a Wellington (NZ) man of Greek extraction named, I believe, John George had a license to export rabbit meat from New Zealand. He also exported skins, which even today are used in the production of the best ‘felt’ hats.
Rabbit, a major pest animal, was commonly eaten here and in Australia until the calcivirus myxomatosis was introduced to both countries in the 1950s. Myxomatosis infected animals were thought to be toxic to humans and people stopped eating them as widely as they had. Another pest animal in both countries — the opossum — provides a superb wool product and could provide large quantities of meat in both countries.
Of course, in this portion of the world, opossum is regarded as the absolute epitome of a “poor person’s meat”. Rabbit might not be commonly eaten, but if you tell someone you’re having rabbit stew for supper, they might just think it’s a traditional recipe, or that you’re experimenting with a low-fat diet, or the like. But if someone eats 'possum, well, they’re probably named Billy-Joe-Bob, wear coveralls as their sole garment, and have five rusty cars without wheels up on blocks in their front yard.
Australian Possums and the US Opossums are totally different animals. The ones in NZ are imports from Australia and are treated as an introduced pest animal over there but in Australia the bloody things are protected species.
I hadn’t heard that people stopped eating Rabbit because of issues with the virus, I thought it was just because after the war the economy picked up and more food was available at the same time as the virus was having an impact on the rabbit population
However, many Americans call American opossums “possums”, and some Australians (perhaps hypercorrecting?) call Australian possums “opossums”.
“Another Max! You’d think they did it on purpose to fuddle you!”
—Dorothy L. Sayers: “The Emperor Constantine”
Around here, the main reason people stop eating rabbit after the introduction of myxoma, and later, calicivirus was that rabbits became a lot less common each time (they had apparently developed some resistance to myxo).
I’ve gone bunny hunting on foot when I was young. You just see a rabbit, run up to it, and try to catch it before it gets away. Eiser when there are lots of rabbits around.
