Easter Bunny Beware

The Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation of Australia wants everyone to say good riddance to the Easter Bunny and hello to the Easter Bilby. Easter what? Bilby -- a native Australian marsupial that looks something like a rabbit but lacks the rabbit's flair for reproducing and devouring vegetation.

The foundation published in 1994 a children's book about how the sweet Easter Bilby beat out greedy bunnies to replace the retiring Easter Bunny. Easter Bilby, written by Ali Garnett and illustrated by Kaye Kessing, has sold 30,000 copies. Sales of chocolate Easter Bilbies have done well too.

(From Science News, Vol. 149, 30 March 1996, p. 207.

Media Release

Monday August 25 1997

Easter Bilby Rescued

The long battle of the Easter Bilby is over.

The Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation of Australia (ARRFA) developed the Easter Bilby in 1991 to highlight the damage done to Australian wildlife by rabbits, and to raise royalties for research and wildlife conservation.

ARRFA registered 'Easter Bilby' as a business name and trademark, and licensed production of many 'Easter Bilby' products, including books, CDs, T-shirts and the first chocolate 'Easter Bilbies' in 1993 as alternatives to 'Easter Bunnies'.

They were an instant success, and many other manufacturers, perhaps unaware of the Easter Bilby's origins, began to copy them.

By Easter this year, at least 13 other kinds of chocolate bilbies were being sold. New versions have appeared each year as the idea of an Australian Easter symbol caught on, and ARRFA's trademark itself has come under attack.

On 22 August 1997 the Confectionery Manufacturers of Austral-asia, representing all ARRFA's opponents, acknowledged ARRFA's sole right to the Easter Bilby, and withdrew its opposition to the trademark. ARRFA, in return, will not object to chocolate bilbies marketed under names other than the 'Easter Bilby.'

Does it matter who owns the Easter Bilby? Very much, according to Dr Rob Morrison, the Chairman of ARRFA.

"The Easter Bilby has two aims," said Dr Morrison. "One is to make bilbies better known, the other is to fund our conservation projects. As a charitable Foundation, we depend on that income, and rival products reduce it or divert it elsewhere."

Easter Bilbies are certainly becoming big business, especially where real bilbies are concerned.

"Increasing amounts are goinq each year to many wildlife projects except those that the Easter Bilby was created for." said Dr Morrison.

"We protestecl about it this Easter and, as a result, $20 000 has just been donated towards the Monarto Bilby Program. It will be used to return bilbies to the wild in South Australia later this year," said Dr Morrison,

"This amicable agreement will now allow both of ARRFA's aims to be met; publicising bilbies and their plight while returning to our Foundation some of the resources needed to preserve them."