Rabbits serve as the archetype for disastrous intentional introductions of exotic species into Australian ecologies.  They have fascinated popular and scholarly historians alike, with numerous accounts tracing their impact on the land and other species; and the schemes of trapping, poisoning, shooting, netting and infection developed to control their numbers. 

As part of a larger project on the history of meat eating in colonial Australia, this paper will shift the focus to a less studied aspect of this invasive animal: its continuing use as a food resource.  In particular, it will examine the initiation of the frozen rabbit trade in the 1890s, extending the current interest in animals at sea to include the restless dead as well those still living.  In the course of an intercontinental voyage, the rabbit was transformed from despised vermin to welcome meat.  This paper will contribute to understandings of the differing valuations of specific animals, even between very similar cultures; and of the further extension of the widening gulf between meat eaters and the lives of the animals they consume made possible by industrial innovations of the later nineteenth century.