From "CSIRO research for Australia" (1962, pdf pages 12-13:

"Two events stimulated the establishment of a C.S.I.R.O. Wildlife Survey Section in 1949. The first was a recommendation from the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science that a research group should be set up to study the Australian native fauna, which was of world-wide interest and needed a conservation policy based on sound ecological knowledge.

The second stimulus was the post-war rabbit situation, which by 1949 had become exceptionally serious in every State, leading to widespread and repeated demands that it should be tackled scientifically on a national basis.

During the first few years the Officer-in-Charge, Mr. F. N. Ratcliffe, and his staff devoted their attention almost exclusively to rabbit control. Their experiments with myxomatosis, an infectious and generaUy fatal disease of rabbits, were not encouraging until in 1951 a release of myxoma virus was made in what proved to be ideal conditions for the spread of an epidemic."

"The Antarctic studies, centred on the royal penguin and the elephant seal, have been carried out with the co-operation of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions. The natural history of both creatures has proved of great scientific interest.

Since 1953, the Section has organized the Australian Bird Banding Scheme. Some hundred amateur and professional ornithologists have taken part, and the recovery of some 25,000 banded birds of many species has helped to build up an intimate knowledge of their movements."