🦎 Rabbit plague hits Bass Coast
Plus, the mysterious case of a body found on top of a Korumburra train in 1919, how to lessen cow burps and farts and a day at San Remo seafood festival.
Jacob Wallace
September 24, 2025
⏱️ This midweek edition of our newsletter is a six-minute read.
👋 Hey Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.
In this week’s newsletter we’re talking about a plague of rabbits causing thousands of dollars worth of property damage in Bass Coast Shire, how selective breeding of cows could lower methane emissions, and I’ve made plenty of quick and entertaining videos summarising recent stories from the Monitor.
🐠 Over the weekend my girlfriend and I went to the Tidal Seafood Festival in San Remo. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too great but we still made the most of it and enjoyed seafood chowder, fried calamari and a prawn brioche roll from Mario’s.
🦞 Throughout the festival there was a stage with seafood related events. We sat and watched a chef take us through how to cook a seafood linguine dish before another chef showed us how to crack open a lobster.
🐕 After visiting the festival the weather cleared up so we stopped by a dog-friendly beach in San Remo, so Quigley could stretch his legs and feel the sand on his paws.
🐇 This week I spoke to Bass Coast Shire councillor Ron Bauer about rabbits on Phillip Island. Bauer brought a motion that passed unanimously to last week’s council meeting to have council officers prepare an eradication plan to deal with the rabbits and other invasive pests.
They are everywhere, the rabbits are burrowing under people’s homes, they’re digging up everybody’s gardens. The damage they’re doing to native flora is horrendous.
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🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest yarns, local interviews and silly videos!
🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂
Maureen and Harold Jackson used to have a green plot their neighbour said was worthy of a Gardening Australia episode - but then came the rabbits.
The Jacksons have lived in Cowes for the last 40 years, and Harold told the Gippsland Monitor this was “by far the worst year for rabbits we’ve ever seen”.
Harold estimated the cost of the damage to his property at between $15,000 and $20,000. He’s tried everything from baiting to filling the warrens, but nothing seems to slow the influx of rabbits.
“There's holes everywhere. They just keep eating everything, destroying a lot of trees, digging up the roots and damaging the fenceline.”
Bass Coast Councillor Ron Bauer told the Monitor that the rabbit situation was among the topics most regularly raised by locals.
What if every new generation of cattle in Gippsland produced less methane than the one before? Researchers argue selective breeding can make that a reality, delivering permanent cuts to emissions in one of the region’s biggest industries.
When a cow breaks down feed in its four-chamber stomach, a small group of microbes called methanogens combine hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane, which is mostly released when cows burp.
According to non-profit World Animal Protection, cows burp about every 90 seconds. If an example cow sleeps for four hours a day, but still burps when it’s asleep, that is about 1,000 burps a day.
“Methane traps around 120 times as much heat as carbon dioxide does moment to moment,” said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But after about 12 years, it breaks down and doesn't trap heat anymore, unlike carbon dioxide, which stays in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.
Curtin University research estimates cattle produce between 50-120kg of methane per cow each year, with diet playing a major role.
☀️ THE EMERGING INDUSTRY OF SOLAR PANEL RECYCLING ♻️
More than 30 percent of Victorian homes have solar panels installed, according to the Victorian government. That number is expected to increase as more households look to cut their electricity bills.
A report from Circular PV Alliance estimates there will be 15 million solar panels needing to be recycled in Australia by 2040.
To cope with this increasing demand companies operating in Gippsland have figured out how to make a profit off processing retired solar panels.
Take a look at the video I made with footage from Elecsome’s solar panel recycling facility in Kilmany below.
🎥 WATCH: The mysterious tale of the man found on top of the Korumburra train 🚂
🔍 Thanks to Annie O’Riley’s Odd Australian History website and several Trove articles, I put together a piece on the strange tale of the body found on top of a Korumburra train in 1919.
Take a look at the video I made about the story below.
Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Gippsland Monitor. I hope you enjoyed this midweek issue, and we’d love to hear from you.
If you have stories you’d like to share with us or tidbits about local history then send us an email at [email protected] and who knows, it might end up in this newsletter next week.
I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with more yarns, Gippsland history, informative videos and food reviews, so stay tuned.
Cheers,
Jacob and the Gippsland Monitor team
