So cute! Japan’s Rabbit Island – the thousand charms of adorable bunnies

Text by MOOK Scenic Spots Family Travel Network Editorial Department, compiled and reported

In Taiwan, it’s a common sight in daily life to see stray dogs or cats on the street, and you might even have had the experience of being chased and fleeing in panic by a dog. But can you imagine the feeling of being surrounded and chased by hundreds of little rabbits begging for food on the street? The scene is hard to picture. Located near Hiroshima, Okunoshima Island gained fame after a traveler captured footage of being chased by hundreds of rabbits begging for food, and the astonishing images went viral online.

Okunoshima is one of the islands in the Geiyo Islands of Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, located about 3 kilometers off the coast of Tadanoumi, Takehara City, Hiroshima Prefecture. Although it now looks like an ultra-cute bunny paradise, during World War II, due to its concealed location, it was chosen by the Japanese military as an experimental base for producing chemical weapons. They even erased this “poison gas island” from maps. Between 1929 and 1945, the Japanese army produced over 6,000 tons of poison gas here. After the war, Okunoshima became an abandoned island, desolate and uninhabited.