I Have Often Heard Of Stampedes,

cattle, horses, humans in the first day of the sales,

 but a stamped of rabbits is a first for me, but that is what happens if you arrive on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea called Ōkunoshima, two miles off the coast of the Japanese city of Takehara, in Hiroshima Prefecture, though, it’s most often referred to by its nickname Usagi Jima, which translates to Rabbit Island and is so named for the hundreds of feral rabbits that call it home,

so why so  many rabbits? the story goes 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: “The test rabbits were all euthanized by the Americans when they came to the island during the Occupation… about 200 of the poor things were being [used] in experiments by the Japanese,” said Krauss, so where did they come from? 

about eight rabbits may have been released by  a group of school kids back in 1971, with no predators to worry about—cats and dogs are banned, as is hunting—these fast-breeding mammals may have multiplied (as they are famous for doing) to their present population of around 1,000 animals, so for a cute day out Usagi Jima, or Rabbit Island must be near to the top of the list, (remember carrots, cabbage and lettuce!), a stamped of rabbits, I would never have thought it.