WATCH | Furry Fiasco

On the island, Amami Ōshima, venom-resistant mongooses began preying on local, and endangered, rabbits. This prompted authorities to step in.
| Video Credit:
Camera and editing by Samson Ronald K.; Presentation by Saatvika Radhakrishna; Supervising producer: Jinoy Jose P. 

On September 4, Japan announced that it had wiped out all mongooses on a subtropical island after they began preying on local rabbits in large numbers. About 30 of the venom-resistant predators were released on Amami Ōshima, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the late 1970s to control the population of habu, a pit viper whose bite can be deadly to humans.

However, the snakes are mostly active at night when mongooses prefer to sleep and the toothy mammals turned their ravenous appetites to local Amami rabbits, drastically reducing their numbers. The rabbits only live on Amami Oshima and one other island and are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. The mongoose population had exploded to around 10,000 by 2000 and Japanese authorities began a programme of eradication that reportedly included specially trained sniffer dogs.

Watch the video to know more.