A place of darkness and light: the uninhabited Japanese island that became a rabbit paradise | Japan

The bunny-ear designs on the window aside, there is little to indicate that the ferry has arrived on an island teeming with rabbits. Then, moments after the passengers disembark, there is activity in the undergrowth. A single rabbit scampers out, wholly untroubled by its two-legged visitors. And then another.

A short walk along the coast takes visitors deep into rabbit territory on Okunoshima, one of 3,000 islands in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea. Half a dozen of the animals chase away another as it attempts to join them in a communal meal of Chinese cabbage. The scene unfolds in front of smiling, camera-toting tourists barely able to believe their proximity to okunoshima’s fabled – but troubled – furry residents.

The two gray rabbits that greeted the ferry from the mainland return to bushes stripped of their leaves.Shallow bowls of water left by volunteers dot the island in places where its estimated 400-500 rabbits tend to congregate in expectation of pellets of food left by visitors in the absence of their natural diet of fallen leaves, bark, roots and grass.

for all its natural beauty and popularity as a tourist destination, Okunoshima – uninhabited except for staff working at the solitary hotel and its guests – faces an uncertain future, and so do its four-legged inhabitants.

From 1929 until the end of the second world war, the island hosted poisonous gas research and production facilities run by the Japanese imperial army. The operation was so secret that Okunoshima was not included in contemporaneous maps of japan.

Map showing position of the island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, as one of many off the coast between Hiroshima and Fukuyama.# The island overrun by rabbits with a dark past

Okunoshima, a small island in Japan, is known affectionately as “Rabbit Island” due to its large population of feral rabbits. Thes fluffy creatures roam freely, charming tourists and becoming a symbol of the island’s appeal. But the story behind their presence is far more complex – and darker – than it appears.

During the second world war, Okunoshima was a secret production site for poisonous gas. The Japanese army manufactured chemical weapons here,and the island was off-limits to civilians. As the war drew to a close and defeat loomed, the Japanese forces attempted to destroy all evidence of their wartime activities.This included the extermination of animals used in experiments, including a colony of white lab rabbits.

Today, the rabbits are a beloved part of Okunoshima’s identity. But the question remains: are they descendants of those rabbits released – or deliberately killed – at the end of the war?

Experts have not ruled out a genetic link between the rabbits experimented on in wartime and those that roam Okunoshima today. The chances are, though, “very low”, says Shingo Kaneko, a professor in the faculty of symbiotic systems science at Fukushima University, who is studying the rabbits’ DNA to learn more about their lineage.

“Even if an individual rabbit survived [the wartime experiments] it would have been very arduous to continue its lineage. But I can’t say 100% no, and it’s a story that people like to believe could be true.”