The rabbit I can not forget

We called her "fly girl" as this female rabbit had flies constantly flying all around her

You could tell she was extremely sick

She was the sweetest rabbit I ever met on Ohkunoshima

10/11/25

There used to be a sick female rabbit at pier 2 of Ohkunoshima back in summer of 2022.

We used to call her Fly Girl. She had the black rabbit as her partner but flies were constantly flying all over her body. We suspected she had issues with her intestines.

She was abnormally underweight and her backbone was even sticking out. No matter how much she ate, she seemed to be losing weight. We provided food and water twice a day and she started to wait for us as if she knew she would get to eat.

After one week or so, one early evening, after being fed, she staggered to her feet and looked back once at us and left. Michael said that was her goodbye to us. It was my first time to see Michael cry for rabbits. We never saw her again and her partner was seen by himself afterwards.

We continued to take care of rabbits and witnessed countless rabbits pass away from sickness and injuries over the years.

As we don’t live in Japan, rescuing any of those sick rabbits was not an option for us.

People who responded to my June 2024 post about the rabbit with huge tumor on her left ear are the people we currently work with as Rescue Team.

We are forever grateful to them for rescuing Ran chan and giving her new life.

After 1 year of rescue activities, to be able to see rescued rabbits make full recovery and find new homes is extremely rewarding. The moment you can feel the rescue was the right thing to do. However, to lose them during medical treatments is too painful to endure than watching rabbits pass away on the island. A lot of sleepless nights from regrets not rescuing them sooner and felt responsible for them to get better. 

The team has been able to gain more participants and we feel we were able to hand off to @her.name.is.mercedes, who visited the island last month.

We will continue to post about Ohkunoshima rabbits as we need to be the voice of these rabbits suffering on this island. 

Not only awareness campaign, we need to drive changes for the island so rabbits don’t have to suffer any longer.We’d appreciate your continuous support for the Rescue Team as you did in the past.

Team, thank you for your efforts and achievements. You guys are true heroes. We will be rooting for you all as always.