In 1887 there were fears that Rabbits on Sunday Island and other islands would reach the mainland. It was reported by Dr. MacDonald that the selector on Sunday Island had to abandon the island because of the rabbits and that parties who visited the island rabbiting very often carried off young rabbits for pets which later escaped. Such was the case at Welshpool where rabbits had obtained a foothold in a narrow belt of coastal scrub. They were often confused with the Hare. In 1890 it was thought they existed on a hill between Armadale House and the Dutson Lime Company Works,where burrows were found but not conclusive if hares or rabbits. Gippsland Rabbit Suppression League reported that a communication had been received stating that four rabbits had been seen at Lake Bunga, and that one of them had been shot. However Mr Roadknight had been reliably informed that what had been killed was a leveret and that he did not think there was a rabbit in the locality. A curious fact : the rabbit may have been in Gippsland as early as the late 1840s. In 1891 the Gippsland Mercury described the early survey of the Ocean Grange area by Malcolm Campbell and James Gove it claimed "they found nine feet of water between the little island and the beach.....Mr.William Thomson paid rent for the island for nineteen years, and stocked it with all the rabbits he could get, some 22 in number, but they do not appear to have thriven for, for none are to be found there now. This is said to have been long before Mr. Pettit and his party made an inspection." ( Pettit's survey was in 1869, Campbell was surveying in the 1840s and 1850s.) Also note: Rabbit island off east coast of Wilson's Prom, presumably rabbits released there very early. Listers may have info on the introduction of cats to control rabbits, thus compounding the problem of feral cats. Cats were introduced to Rotamah Island in the 1920s(?) for this purpose. A cat house was built on the southern side of the island on the back channel and was used to breed up cats to keep rabbits down. In 1966 Frank Bury of Metung observed 'Phalangers, [gliders] once so plentiful, owe their destruction to domestic cats which slaughtered them in hundreds when they glided to earth to run up another tree. In fact cats are one of the major curses of our bird life. Yet I know a supposed bird lover who regularly releases broods of unwanted kittens on Boole Poole.'