Mown down

Tragedy has struck at the Australian National University. Flotsam and Jetsam were elected visiting fellows with a free grant of grass earlier this year. But the tenure of the two lawn-mowing rabbits was cut short last month when they contracted myxamotosis and had to be destroyed.

The rabbits had lived inside a cylindrical cage made from old bicycle wheels and mesh wire netting which they trundled across the grass, eating it down as they rolled along. They were part of a long-running experiment devised by Dr Nigel Wace to develop a silent and more benign way of lawnmowing.

A distraught Dr Wace said Flotsam and Jetsam were pioneers in urban livestock production and the promotion of quieter, more humane suburbs. He said that with the death of the two visiting fellows, the Rolling Rabbit Run had stopped and a silent lawnmower had gone from the ANU campus. RIP.