Researchers went on three-month trek to find world's rarest rabbit. They found it on the first night
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Loading... - Suth Inthuvarman
- 04 Jun 2020
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Try and find a set of keys and it takes you forever. Try and find the world’s rarest rabbit and – oh, there it is.
A group of researchers who set out on a three-month expedition to try and track down the world’s rarest rabbit found it on the very first night.
Sarah Woodfin, who is studying for a Masters in Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of East Anglia, travelled with a team to the forests of Laos in the hope of finding the Annamite Striped rabbit, a rare species first documented by Dr. Diana Bell and her colleagues at UEA in 1999.
But what was expected to be an arduous and perhaps frustrating expedition ended rather abruptly when Ms. Woodfin spotted one eating some vegetation by a river bank on the very first night.
‘I didn’t expect that I would ever see one up close,’ she said.
‘I thought that if I was very lucky, I might see one from a distance in the forest.
‘I certainly never expected that I would have the opportunity to hold one of these magnificent animals. I was utterly delighted.
‘One of my team members managed to catch it and brought it back to camp, where we were all able to have a good look at it.
‘My first feeling was shock. I recognised it as a striped rabbit as soon as I saw it, as they are very distinctive, but I couldn’t believe that they had caught one.
‘The rabbit was very handsome, with dark stripes against a pale gold background and a red rump.
‘We were able to take some measurements and photographs before we released it back into the forest.
‘I was completely awed by the encounter. I had never expected to get so close to the species, but it was necessary to take its measurements.’
Ms. Woodfin, who plans to model the potential distribution of the Annamite Striped to aid conservation efforts, said the rabbit is at threat from hunting and deforestation.
Images taken of the rabbit in the past have been caught by motion-sensitive ‘camera traps’.
