The Man-Eating Bunny Catastrophe of 1932

A few months ago, on a mellow Friday I evening I headed over to the local library to rent a movie. Normally I would be more inclined to check out the recent releases at Blockbuster, but money was tight leading up to my move to Senegal, so the library seemed like a reasonable alternative.

As I browsed through the shelves I noticed the librarian return a DVD to its place entitled The Man-Eating Bunny Catastrophe of 1932. I studied history in University and had never come across this movie-worthy event. When I inquired, the librarian assured me that it had been a widespread issue in Newfoundland, though the worst suffering community was a small town on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. I was intrigued. My grandma had been a young girl, about 10 years old at the time and had lived in Port au Choix, the hardest hit community, but she had never mentioned this tragedy.

That evening after watching the movie, I was heartbroken at the horror experienced by so many people around the country. From what I understood of the documentary, a man rabbit trapping had unknowingly set a trap using infected bait. It is assumed that a rabbit had managed to eat the bait without being trapped. The rabbit must have become infected and spread the disease as it reproduced. The rabbits in the area began to grow 4x their normal size and developed fangs that injected poisonous venom. They would attack unsuspecting children playing in yards, or men hunting in the woods. Towns became deserted even during daytime hours and it was too dangerous to do gardening or other outdoor chores. People lived in terror.

I could hardly sleep that night thinking about some of the personal stories I had seen in the film. I also couldn’t understand why Nan had never mentioned the catastrophe before. After a fitful night I called Nan early the next morning to get her perspective of the story. As I asked questions she became increasingly quiet, her answers more and more abrupt. I soon realized that this must have been a painful memory and I let the topic drop, but a few days later a moose-hide journal and clothes-pin showed up in the mail. It was Nan’s diary from 1932. I was surprised at how articulate she wrote for a ten year-old.

As I read the diary I realized why it was such a painful memory. Nan’s two younger brothers and cousin had been attacked by Man-Eating rabbits. They had all escaped with their lives and survived poisonous bites, but the recovery was slow and they were traumatized by the experience. It suddenly made sense to me why my great uncle Lloyd was agoraphopic.


Photo from:http://s1010.photobucket.com/albums/af221/TYRANIDMASTER123/?action=view¤t=evil20bunny.jpg&newest=1

As I continued to read I discovered that Nan herself had also been a victim. Her mother had insisted that the laundry still needed to be hung on the line in spite of the possibility of a bunny attack. While my ten year-old grandmother hung her family’s underwear on the line, a man-eating bunny had hopped out of the woods and taken her by surprise. She only had the laundry and clothes pins with her so she did the first thing that came to mind and started pinching the clothes pins in the bunny’s direction. The clothes pins had been a recent purchase. The new spring loaded “pinch” pins that had only recently arrived in the local store. As the bunny closed in on her she closed her eyes and pinched blindly in the bunny’s direction bracing herself for the pain of the attack, but the pain never came. When she opened her eyes the bunny, with the pinch-pin on its nose, sat contentedly nibbling the long grass.

My grandmother had been the town heroine. Knowing the secret of taming the man-eating bunnies, local authorities were able to contain the bunnies for testing and treatment. I hadn’t recognized the young girl in the documentary as my grandmother because she had been so young that my great-grandmother would not permit her name or picture to be published in local records. The pinch-pin my grandma had included in the parcel, was the very pin she had used to save her life.


Author’s Note: This story was created and told orally (with a few less details) to my grade 6 Social Studies class to illustrate oral history, primary and secondary sources, and artifacts. None of the details in the story are factual. I’m pretty sure rabbit trappers do not use bait and that there’s no such thing as a moose-hide journal. My grandmother would certainly not be pleased if you thought she was 88 years old, and she’ll give you a weird look if you ask about her brother Lloyd who does not exist.