The Murchison Murders were a series of three murders, committed by an itinerant stockman known as "Snowy" Rowles, near the rabbit-proof fence in Western Australia during the early 1930s. Rowles used the murder method that had been suggested by author Arthur Upfield in his then unpublished book The Sands of Windee, in which he described a foolproof way to dispose of a body and thus commit the perfect murder.
Snowy Rowles standing beside James Ryan's car, photographed by Arthur Upfield
The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from the east, out of Western Australian pastoral areas.
The rabbit-proof fence in 2005
Boundary rider's team at the 100-mile (160 km) No. 1 Fence in Western Australia in 1926
1884 cartoon in response to a proposal to erect a rabbit-proof fence between New South Wales and Queensland. Original caption: "Mr Stevenson, M.L.A., suggested that the Government should erect a wire fence along our New South Wales border in order to check the coming invasion of rabbits. The artist depicts the probable use the bunnies would make of the fence."
