In which country have the authorities tried to replace the Easter Bunny with an animal called the Easter Bilby?

Answer 1

The simple answer is Australia, but this question is not strictly correct. The "authorities" have not tried to replace the Easter Bunny with an Easter bilby. However, various concerned people and groups have tried to give the commercial side of Easter a more Australian emphasis, and in so doing, help conserve the bilby. The idea of an Easter bilby has actually been around since the 1970s. One of its sources may be a book entitled Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby being launched by author Rose-Marie Dusting, in Adelaide in 1979. Dusting donated a percentage of the sales of her book to conservation of the bilby. there are other claims of small groups implementing the concept of an Easter bilby, all around the same time, i.e. late 1970s to early 1980s. The first chocolate bilbies in Australia were produced in 1993 by South Australian companies Haigh's Chocolates, Melba's Chocolatesand Cottage Box Chocolates, and were an initiative of the Anti-Rabbit research Fund of Australia (now Foundation for Rabbit-free Australia). The purpose of this campaign was to highlight the destruction caused since the introduction of rabbits in Australia in the 1860s. In 2002, Darrell Lea Chocolatesalso began producing chocolate bilbies, donating funds to bilby conservation, while Australian singer John Williamson launched 'The Easter Bilby' song at a Sydney public school on March 19, 2003. The government has not been involved at all. It has been a protracted campaign by many groups concerned with preserving the critically endangered bilby.