The Rabbit-Hating Frenchman who nearly wiped out Europe

Paul hated rabbits. Unfortunately, he was also a scientist

I can’t remember how old I was when I saw it. But I can remember my shoes: patent, with velcro straps, and blue stars. White socks. And there, in the grass, limp and sprawled under the festering dance of maggots, a dead bunny. “Mummy?” I said, staring at that haunted, bulbous face, buboes warping scared, dead eyes. “Why is that rabbit lumpy?”

Rabbopocalypse? The collapse of the eco-system in the wake of spectacular stupidity

She didn’t tell me, then. Perhaps she didn’t know. But, if you’re European, you’ve seen a rabbit with myxomatosis. It’s a truly evil, wicked, curse of a disease. A virus riddled by the devil himself over a long dark night. It isn’t a kind scythe out of the bunny mortal plane. First, the rabbit begins to swell. Then, it gets hot, feverish. Slowly, it develops lesions and bulbous swellings, discharge clouding it’s vision. Then, blind, terrified, it struggles to breathe, as it’s lungs begin to shut down. Then, hypothermia. And there in the dark, cold, gasping to breathe, they wait for death. Maybe a fox will make it quick. They can’t run. Perhaps that is the one kindness.

You probably knew that.

But you probably didn’t know that the devil didn’t inflict this on our rabbits: well, unless you think the devil goes by the name of Paul-Félix…