Some medals commemorate things that don't look quite the same with the benefit of hindsight. The Acclimatization Society of Victoria (Australia) was founded in 1861 by Edward Wilson, with the aim of introducing plants and game birds and animals. Ferdinand von Mueller distributed 7,120 living plants and 22,438 packets of seed to gardens throughout the colony. Others introduced starlings and sparrows, even European carp to the Murray River. Wilson lived by his motto of ‘if it lives, we want it’. The Acclimatization Society folded in 1872 from both a lack of money and the realisation of the consequences that many of these introductions were having and, indeed, saving Australia from the worst of the enthusiasms of these well-meaning men. Of all of these it is the devastation caused by rabbits that is most familiar to us. "To make matters worse, the suggestion was made that weasels and stoats could control the rabbits. Despite warnings from Alfred Newton and others, these predators were introduced and Herbert Guthrie-Smith declared it as an "attempt to correct a blunder by a crime."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acclimatisation_society The Acclimatization Society of Victoria, copper medal, 1868, by J. S. & A. B. Wyon, after Thomas Landseer, A.R.A., awarded (in the first year of issue), to G. C. Burne Esq, Melbourne. 58mm.
