FEATURE - Famous Australian hatters mad about rabbits
Date: 19-Apr-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Paul Tait
Generations of Australian farmers from the rolling green hills of the eastern seaboard to the unforgiving dusty outback have worn the hats, which are as much a part of Australian rural life as Stetsons are symbolic of the American west.
The snappy but durable felt hats have also become fashion centrepieces. Akubras have graced the heads of U.S. presidents, European royalty and film stars.
The unlisted company has a page on its website (www.akubra.com.au) titled "Celebrity Craniums" and half-jokingly says that you're nobody until you've got an Akubra.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard handed out Akubras to Commonwealth leaders at a gathering of the group of 54 mainly former British colonies in Queensland state last month.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton put one on the presidential gold card during an impromptu Sydney harbourside shopping expedition with wife Hillary in November 1996.
"Ronald Reagan was given one by (former Australian prime minister) Bob Hawke, Prince Charles has got one," company secretary Roy Wilkinson told Reuters.
"All sorts of people have got them," he said.
FAMOUS HEADS
Some of the hats might reach lofty heights atop the heads of the rich and famous but they all have humble beginnings as wild rabbit pelts at the Akubra factory in Kempsey, a sleepy rural town about 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Sydney.
The hats are made from the strong but supple underfur which is cut from the pelt after the coarser outer fur is removed.
The delicate fur is then sucked on to a perforated cone about three times the size of the finished product, pulled and soaked in hot water, leaving a rough, droopy cone which looks a little like something a giant village idiot might wear.
Constant soaking, pressure and friction form a tough and impervious felt which gradually shrinks. The hats are then dyed, trimmed and then shaped in heated aluminium dishes before the finishing touches are added.
Each hat requires about 14 pelts and Akubra says it sells between 4,000 and 5,000 hats a week in Australia, Europe and the United States - meaning the company uses between 2.9 million and 3.6 million pelts a year.
Wilkinson said wild rabbit pelts are used because they are less oily than farmed rabbits.
RABBIT PLAGUES
But increasing demand since the late 1980s and successful campaigns to rid farmlands of plague-proportion wild rabbits by introducing the rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD) have forced Akubra to import pelts from Europe.
Australia released RCD in 1996 at the height of a plague in which rabbit numbers were estimated at 300 million.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have estimated rabbits cost Australia up to A$600 million (US$318 million) a year in lost agricultural production and cause incalculable damage to the environment.
CSIRO scientists say RCD killed about 65 percent of rabbit populations in some areas of Australia and up to 90 percent of populations in drier regions after its release.
Rabbit populations are now at 15-20 percent of their original numbers in some areas. The environment has also responded with native trees and shrubs beginning to regenerate, some in areas where they had been thought to have died out completely.
While it was good news for farmers and the environment, RCD was a less welcome initiative for Akubra, which now imports about 120,000 kg of rabbit pelts a year from Europe.
"In itself, the virus was of no major problem for us but...people who farmed rabbits, the rabbit hunters who killed the rabbits for meat, their demand dissipated once the virus was released," Wilkinson said.
"That's where our supply really dried up," he said.
Demand for the hats, which cost anywhere from US$45 to US$100 depending on the style and supplier, remains high.
Akubra expects a sales increase of about five percent this financial year. Germany has become an unexpectedly strong market over the past three or four ye
