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This Once-Secret Island Now Hosts Hordes of Adorable Bunnies

Now home to hundreds of semi-tame bunnies, the island once housed poison gas facilities

Rabbits around old military facilities on Okunoshima. (Photo: Francesco Libassi/AFLO/Nippon News/Corbis)

It's like an animal-loving child's fantasy come true: an island where hundreds upon hundreds of bunnies live, and they all want to play with you (or at least eat the food you brought with you). 

In Japan, such a place exists, the Guardian reports. It's nick-named Usagi Jima—Rabbit Island—but its official name is Okunoshima. Sandwiched between Japan's main islands of Honshu and Shikoku, tiny Okunoshima's claim to fame is its hundreds of semi-tame rabbits. Tourists regularly make the ferry trip to the island in order to spend time with its bushy-tailed residents, and the rabbits happily hop after them and snuggle up in exchange for a snack. 

As the Guardian points out, however, Okunoshima's history isn't all fuzzy adorableness and baby bunnies. Beginning in 1929 and until World War II, the island served as headquarters for an ultra-secret poison gas and chemical weapons production plant. Officials even removed it from maps to prevent people from knowing about it. The chemical weapons facilities, however, might have a tie to the rabbits. The Guardian explains: 


Regardless of how the bunnies got there, they've certainly left their mark. They've become internet sensations as well as a major tourist draw, but by the looks of it those notorious invasive species have also completely decimated the island's native vegetation, turning Okunoshima into a miniature Australia, circa 1930. Their cuteness, however, ensures that they'll never starve. Unless Japan decides to eradicate the bunnies, fluff-loving tourists will no doubt happily keep the population well fed, even if it's far exceeded its neutral carrying capacity. 

Here, you can see a giddy tourist being chased by horde of hungry bunnies: 


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