Bunny Roundabout

https://rachel.blog/2022/05/03/bunny-roundabout/

by miduil • 4 years ago

73 68 4 years ago

JadeNB• 4 years ago

Of course, complaints about what's on topic at HN always have the same, correct answer—it's on topic at HN if it's of interest to hackers, whether or not it's about hacking.

All the same, while I understand that blog entries don't have to be about anything in particular, I am curious about what made this worth surfacing here. There's a roundabout with some bunnies, people are feeding them, and it's not really clear who but no-one seems to mind—is there some significance to the story I'm missing, or was it just a pleasant bit of news?

capableweb3• 4 years ago

I didn't personally upvote it, but I'm happy I saw it, as it was "just a pleasant bit of news" for me and the part about the "drive-by carroting" made me smile.

Also I learned that Aberdeen sees itself as the "Energy Capital of Europe" while I've never heard about the place before, and I've been around in Europe a lot in my years :)

ZeroGravitas• 4 years ago

It's the base for a lot of North Sea Oil and Gas companies, due to its location, which probably gives it some claim to the title, as any other contender closer to the center of europe would probably need to share access with other localities, while being on the extreme end concentrates things (while also making it kind of irrelevant if you're not involved in north sea oil or gas).

Randomly googled map to demonstrate:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/2...

andybak• 4 years ago

I tend to upvote the occasional post such as this for the simple reason that I sometimes just like to increase the diversity of content.

In this case I think this also has the potential for some very HN-ish dicussion. Rabbits and foxes is a classic CS topic after all! Ecology and population dynamics leads to some interesting maths.

Plus - bunnies.

BeefWellington2• 4 years ago

I'd go even further: The environment is an important cost factor in business now and likely to become more so in the future. Understanding what it looks like when nature adapts to the changes we're making is valuable.

It's like the Peppered moths in England.[1]

While this specific story may have limited applicability to someone wanting to build a new cloud service business, keeping environmental impacts in mind can't hurt. Plus, bunnies.

Alternately, if you want to go full "rabbits are pests and should be removed", you can always make it a business opportunity.[2]

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-evidence-peppe...

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/International/rabbits-burned-fuel-swe...

subroutine• 4 years ago

This one's got me stumped too. I was expecting to see either an absurd amount of rabbits, or at least one adorable bunny.

quickthrower22• 4 years ago

It is a story that provokes “but why?”. Wouldn’t be out of place on that explainer part of the xkcd site.

enneff• 4 years ago

Fwiw for anyone who wants to feed some bunnies, leafy greens are better for them than carrots. Give them a big bunch of parsley and they’ll love you forever.

dmurray• 4 years ago

Rabbits like carrot leaves, not the part of the carrot we eat.

The stereotype of Bugs Bunny munching on the end of a carrot comes from farmers complaining about rabbits destroying their carrots. Cartoonists misinterpreted this either accidentally or intentionally for better visuals.

(Humans can eat carrot greens too, though most people find other leafy vegetables tastier and easier to prepare).

pooper• 4 years ago

Rabbits like carrot leaves, not the part of the carrot we eat.

I took care of a pair of rabbits for a bit as a child. As relatively poor people, I couldn't afford to feed the rabbits actual carrots. I remember feeling amused at how the rabbits would (seemingly gladly) eat the green leaves of carrots (something we threw away) and not complain. I feel better about not being able to feed them actual carrots.

Thank you for the trip down memory lane. It is amazing how much we actually remember but never think about...

BeFlatXIII• 4 years ago

That and the carrot looked like chomping a cigar.

dale_glass• 4 years ago

Bugs Bunny is interesting in that it had a large cultural influence.

It also turned "nimrod" into an insult, when people misunderstood Bugs Bunny sarcastically calling Elmer Fudd "Nimrod". Nimrod is a mighty hunter from the Bible, and Bugs' expression was equivalent to calling somebody stupid "Einstein".

So now "nimrod" effectively means "moron", though that wasn't the intention.

flir2• 4 years ago

Darker the better, in my experience. They'll bite off your arm for some cavolo nero.

bregma• 4 years ago

Time for Brother Maynard to fetch the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

0daystock5• 4 years ago

Darker greens should be used sparingly with rabbits, because of the high calcium and oxalate content. Cilantro, parsley, basil, any lettuce except iceberg are all solid choices for keeping buns healthy, shiny and happy.

aitchnyu• 4 years ago

Funny how a 1930s tribute to Mel Blanc's mannerism still make people think carrots are good for rabbits.

egypturnash• 4 years ago

IIRC Blanc actually hated carrots, they kept a trash can next to him in the recording studio so he could immediately spit it out after a take involving a carrot crunch was done.

0daystock5• 4 years ago

Fresh hay would be better still. Healthy rabbit diet should consist of 85-90% hay, some greens and fruit/sweets extremely sparingly.

Ancapistani2• 4 years ago

My family has two rabbits (mini lops) in a large divided hutch on our pack patio. They each get a fist-sized portion of greens every day - parsley, cilantro, kale, etc. depending on what's on sale at the grocery store or about to be thrown out.

There's also a "treat" hidden in there somewhere. Sometimes that's a small baby carrot, sometimes it's a blackberry or raspberry, sometimes a piece of watermelon.

In addition to the above, they always have access to pellets, timothy hay, and water. If it's not wet out, we put them out in ~6' circular mesh pens to play for at least an hour each day.

They seem pretty happy with their lives, and are neither gaining nor losing weight. It's a far cry from the wire cages in an outbuilding where they spent the first couple of years of their lives for sure.

zenexer• 4 years ago

Isn’t kale one of the few greens rabbits aren’t supposed to eat?

Maursault• 4 years ago

No. You fees rabbits timothy hay and alfalfa. These are the staples of a healthy rabbit's diet. Anything else, greens, carrots, banana, strawberry, are treats not food. Too much treats causes diarrhea, which can be fatal due to dehydration.

CamperBob2• 4 years ago

Actchewally, carrots aren't great for rabbits. Too high in carbs. Better to toss them a good grade of organic romaine lettuce.

capableweb3• 4 years ago

Carrots are great for rabbits! Just not the same part that humans like, but the other part that we usually throw away.

quickthrower22• 4 years ago

Sounds like rabbits need a similar diet to guinea pigs them.

oneeyedpigeon3• 4 years ago

They should reduce the speed limit on that roundabout. Actually, they should reduce the speed limit on all roundabouts...

capableweb3• 4 years ago

Seems to be big enough to handle 30-40 km/h, but hard to judge from just the pictures. Obviously depending on the amount of traffic, the suitable speed might be lower/higher. Is the speed limit higher than that?

oneeyedpigeon3• 4 years ago

I just meant for safety reasons. Not just for the rabbits themselves — although I DO care about them! — but also for drivers who may be distracted by a rabbit suddenly running across the road.

The actual speed limit on that roundabout is an interesting issue! It's debatable, but the most accurate 'guidance' I can find is that it should be the speed of the majority of the approach roads — how you're supposed to work that out, sat in your own approach road, I don't know. The one in question is almost certainly 30-40 mph, which is about 50-65 km/h. In theory, some roundabouts have a 70mph speed limit, although they'll be very different from the one in question.

Disclaimer: UK driver, detest roundabouts.

adhesive_wombat• 4 years ago

Roundabouts don't really need speed limit changes, because they're naturally self-limiting. Most roundabouts have the same limit as roads they're on, so there are lots of roundabouts that have 70 limits on, say, dual carriageways [1]. But that doesn't mean you drive on them at 70.

Speed limits aren't really a speed that it's safe to go at throughout the limited area (for example, a blind T junction is probably unsafe at 20mph, but can still be in a 50). It's a speed that it's not safe to exceed, even when the road conditions appear to suggest otherwise. On a roundabout, as at other junctions without priority, the road dictates the speed, not the signage. Exceeding the safe speed indicted by the road itself is still an offense of dangerous driving, even if below the posted limit.

[1]: For cars; HGVs and vans both have a lower limit on dual carriageways. Not that many van drivers appear to know that.

gadders• 4 years ago

I heard a (possibly apocryphal) story about traders at a London brokers releasing rabbits into the rooftop garden. People would look up in the atrium and see rabbits spread-eagled against the skylights, sun bathing.

Reason077• 4 years ago

That’s a very tidy and well-maintained looking roundabout by UK standards.

Down south they are typically severely overgrown with weeds and covered in thick layers of litter and other debris.

Well done, Aberdeen!

wanda• 4 years ago

And no visible drunkard! Take heed, Yorkshire!

rob74• 4 years ago

Seems counterintuitive at first that rabbits should choose a roundabout as a place to live, but if you think about it, they're less likely to be disturbed by people, dogs etc. there than somewhere else. I don't know how far rabbits move away from their burrow, but as long as they don't have to do it to get food or to evade predators, I guess they prefer to stick pretty close to it, and the road probably isn't that inviting, which explains why they haven't been (all) run over by cars yet...

oneeyedpigeon3• 4 years ago

And they're often raised — rabbits love hills!

Sharlin• 4 years ago

Similarly, in Finland there are some black-headed gull colonies that have chosen to live and nest in rail yards. The birds don’t seem to mind the freight trains passing by – or even literally over their heads – but apparently their predators and egg thieves are less comfortable with big noisy human things moving around.

sidewndr462• 4 years ago

I was driving near the border of Northern New Mexico and Texas recently on a state highway. I kept noticing groundhogs everywhere. Almost all the land is farmland out there. So I imagine it is plowed every year or so. The only strip of land is undisturbed is the right of way between the edge of the road & the fence. So groundhog colonies are basically all along the side of the road.

Edit: as pointed out below it's actually "Cynomys ludovicianus" or the Black-tailed prairie dog.

pavon• 4 years ago

In that part of the country they would likely have been prairie dogs. And yes, they live sparsely all throughout the desert, but cluster more densely on the edges of cultivated land where there is more food.

BeefWellington2• 4 years ago

Rabbits generally stick close to home but can range around 200m/660ft from their burrow (doing the math of 10 acres -> distance from center, ish).[1]

There's probably a lot to like about the roundabout. It's highly likely that at dawn and dusk they cross the road; rabbits around here have no problems doing that.

[1] https://www.havahart.com/rabbit-facts

Symbiote• 4 years ago

It's Garthdee Roundabout, here on Streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@57.1235518,-2.1213832,3a,75y,31...

DownGoat• 4 years ago

Can even see them here https://www.google.com/maps/@57.1237885,-2.1221885,3a,62.7y,...

mleo• 4 years ago

There is a bunny that spends time among our house and small set of neighbors for the past 2 years. Impressive that it has lived this long. We replaced grass with turf last fall and it disappeared for a while. I have seen it on the turf more recently again. I was surprised one day when looking in that area of yard and seeing how much poo it has left on the turf.

0daystock5• 4 years ago

Rabbits are incredible pets, not least of which is because they leave virtually odor-free (being herbivores) droppings which can be collected and spread through the garden as compost/fertilizer. Our family of buns actually produces so much we have to give away garbage bags full of their product on craigslist to happy local farmers. Plus they don't make noise and have big personalities! I think they are excellent companions for adults. Not so much for kids, though.

mrlonglong• 4 years ago

At least there's somewhere to get food if civilisation collapses!

reaperducer• 4 years ago

Also check large tree planters in front of skyscrapers.

The Aon Center, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois tower in Chicago are notorious for harboring dozens and dozens of rabbits.

0daystock5• 4 years ago

The problem originates with people releasing domesticated rabbits into the wild when they decide they no longer wish to care for them as pets. Unfortunately, this is almost always a death sentence for the creature which won't understand how to survive in the wild, lacks camouflage and will likely get picked off by a predator within several days. If you've ever taken a walk through Discovery Park near Seattle, you'll see a similar spectacle. Please, if you ever think about doing this, stop and bring the animal to a shelter, or try to re-home them yourself instead.

Steltek2• 4 years ago

That seems like a very locale specific explanation. In Boston, rabbits are prolific, even with a very robust predator population. Our local rabbits also appear to have pretty good instincts and decent woodsy camouflage, not your bright white pet bunnies.

ianai• 4 years ago

Any animal raised and cared for closely by humans is going to be unprepared for that. It’s cruel.

curuinor• 4 years ago

it's locale specific, but it's like, locale specific to places that do the bunny stuff for easter, which is like a material proportion of the earth

hallway_monitor• 4 years ago

I don't understand the problem with this. Life is a death sentence; you are just allowing them to realize their destiny, and helping a hungry hawk. Isn't nature wonderfu?

0daystock5• 4 years ago

Let me try and put it in a way hackers might understand: you're putting a buggy and out-of-date program with lots of exposed network ports and PII on the Internet with no firewall. We're all adults and can come to our own conclusions about the morality of this decision, but I think we can all agree deploying un-optimized code to prod is in poor taste.

aluminum962• 4 years ago

Unlike in the US, European wild rabbits and domestic rabbits are actually the same species, so it's hard to tell if these rabbits are naturally wild, or were released.

swader999• 4 years ago

Now that's what I'd call a hare pin.

aluminum962• 4 years ago

I suspect the rabbits chose to take up residence inside the roundabout to avoid predators, who are probably unwilling to cross the busy traffic at most times of day.

Bunny Roundabout

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