Okunoshima (Rabbit Island)

Okunoshima is a small island in the Inland Sea off Tadanoumi in Takehara, 4.3 kilometres around. About a thousand wild rabbits live on it, which is why it is known as the rabbit island. It also holds the remains of a poison gas works.

The rabbits

The rabbits are wild and live loose across the island. They are used to people and will come up to anyone carrying food, and pellets for them are sold at the port before the crossing.

They are not tame animals, and the island asks visitors to treat them accordingly: not to pick them up, since a frightened rabbit struggles and can break a bone in the fall, and there is no vet on the island; not to chase them; and not to feed them on the roads, where a rabbit intent on eating will not notice a bicycle or a car.

Human food makes them ill, bread and snacks included, and so do potatoes and sweet potatoes. Food left behind spoils and draws crows, which prey on the young rabbits.

The poison gas works

From 1929 until the end of the war the island was where the Japanese army made poison gas, among it mustard gas and lewisite. The work was kept secret, and the island was taken off published maps.

Buildings from that time are still standing: the stores where the gas was kept, air raid shelters, gun batteries and the power station.

The museum

A museum on the island, opened in 1988, sets out what was made here, the harm it did, and how the island came to be erased from the map.

The island is reached by ferry from Tadanoumi, about 15 minutes.