Okunoshima ( Rabbit Island)

 

A little girl feeding the rabbits at the island 

Okunoshima or Usagi Shima is a tiny and abandoned island in the inland sea of japan sitting in the Takehera city , Hiroshima prefecture . popular as the rabbit island , the island is only accessible through a ferry which is available from Tadanoumi and Omishima . 

The island is known as the 'Rabbit Island' because of the high number of rabbits living there . The rabbits are very cute and are surprisingly approach humans . 

 The concept of bunnies roaming freely on an island uninhabited by humans sounds very cute , but the island actually has a dark history . no one knows how bunnies came to be the major occupiers of tis island . Though there is no concrete truth , there are several theories . 

Its a bit of a mystery how all these bunnies ended up on a tiny island whose previous claim to fame (infamy ,actually) was as the spot where the Japanese imperial army manufactured thousands of tons of poison gas during world war II in a facility so secret the island was removed from all Japanese maps . 

Some people believe the island's terrible history may hold the key to why rabbits now call it home . back in 1929 , when the army began manufacturing chemical weapons , rabbits were brought to the island and used to test the effectiveness of the poison gas , according to the guardian . This gave rise to the belief that workers may have released the captive animals onto the island following the war . Most experts disagree with this version of events though . Ellis Krauss , a professor of Japanese politics at the university of California San Diego , told the website the dodo in a 2014 interview that the original rabbits were wiped out after the war .

Some people believe that the bunnies were brought on the island by a British couple in the 1970s . others believe that the bunnies wee released by a nearby school . However there is no proof to solidify any of the theories . at present the number of bunnies on the island are estimated to be between 700-1000. 

The island remained hidden from public view until 2014 . In 2014 a video was posted with the bunnies of the island playing with a girl . Thanks to the power of social media , the island is now quite popular and attracts a great number of visitors .  

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