24 rabbits made Australia's land harsher

I was reading Bill Bryson's compelling * n a Sunburned Country* where I encountered this sobering anecdote: Although inland Australia has never been exactly verdant, much of the marginal land once experienced periods of relative lushness, sometimes lasting years, occasionally lasting decades and, it enjoyed a natural resiliency that let it spring back after droughts. Then, in 1859, a man named…