Hello. This is 6 Minute English, I’m Neil. And joining me is Rob. |
Hello. |
Rob, when we think of Easter, what do you think of? |
Chocolate! |
Well, yes chocolate Easter eggs are an obvious symbol of Easter. |
But there is an animal people often associate with Easter... |
Rabbits! Cute, adorable and fluffy – what’s not to like about a rabbit? |
Well, not everyone is a fan of them – by not a fan of I mean they don’t like them. |
Some people think they are a pest. |
But we’ll be telling you more about rabbits shortly. |
That’s good to know. |
Well, I’ll tell you what I am a fan of and that is your quiz questions – so what are you going to ask me today? |
It’s all about wild rabbits. |
In the last rabbit survey in 1995, how many were estimated to exist in the UK? |
Is it... a) 370,500 b) 3,750,000, or c) 37,500,000? |
I know rabbits are everywhere in the UK but not 37 million of them – so I’ll go for b) 3,750,000. |
Well, you’ll have to wait until the end of the programme to find out. |
But you’re right when you say rabbits are everywhere in the UK. |
It’s probably true in other countries too. |
You could say they are endemic – meaning very common or strongly established in a place or situation. |
But are they a typically British wild animal? |
They are now but it’s believed they were brought to the country by invaders – some say The Romans, others The Normans. |
But they eventually spread across the UK. |
Victoria Dickinson is author of a book called Rabbit and she’s been telling the BBC Radio 4 programme Costing The Earth about what helped them spread... |
It was really by the middle of the 17th Century when people really started to think about rabbit as being particularly British... |
and certainly there were more rabbits in Britain than in the rest of Europe. |
There was a calculation done that there are over 400 villages and towns in Britain with the word ’warren’ in their name. |
So the rabbits were raised in Britain but they really kept to their warrens until there was the rise of fox hunting |
- when their predators disappeared rabbits do what rabbits do best, and they started to multiply and become wild, feral rabbits throughout the land. |
So Victoria knows a thing or two about rabbits – and said the word ’warren’ used in town and village names, is evidence that they’ve been in the UK since the mid-17th Century. |
A warren is the area underground where rabbits live with lots of holes and connected passages. |
But today we use the word warren to mean a building or part of a town where there are lots of confusing passageways or streets. |
It’s a kind of place where you get lost. |
But it was rabbit warrens where rabbits would live until hunting, particularly fox hunting, was introduced and that killed many of the rabbit’s predators. |
A predator is an animal that hunts and kills another animal. |
Now, Victoria was talking about feral rabbits – so wild rabbits – not the sort people keep at pets in a rabbit hutch. |
Moving on – I’m interested to know why not everyone loves these cute little creatures, I mean, think of the rabbit characters in the Beatrix Potter stories. |
Well they weren’t always well behaved. |
And Victoria Dickinson spoke to the Costing the Earth programme about this. |
What word did she use to describe rabbits having the two opposite sides to their character? |
The rabbit is a paradoxical animal; it has a lot of faces if you will. |
It’s both wild and tame, it’s timid but also has its reputation as trickster rabbit |
- if you think of Peter Cottontail, or you think of Br’er Rabbits |
- and I think our relationship with rabbit is the rabbit of the nursery rhyme, the rabbit of childhood or you think of Peter Rabbit. |
She said that rabbits are paradoxical animals – that’s the word that describes them having two opposing characteristics. |
Yes – we think of them as wild, maybe a trickster – someone who deceives people to get what they want. Like Peter – what a cheeky rabbit! |
But we also think of rabbits as tame – we have nursery rhymes about them, kids have soft cuddly rabbit toys. |
I say that they’re the perfect symbol for Easter. |
OK Rob, if you say so. |
But now let me answer the question I set you earlier. |
In the last survey of rabbits in 1995, how many were estimated to exist in the UK? |
Was it... a) 370,500 b) 3,750,000, or c) 37,500,000? |
Rob, what did you say? |
I said b) 3,750,000. |
Well, you’re wrong Rob! |
A government survey put the population in the UK at 37.5 million – so a lot more. |
But despite its reputation, a recent survey suggests rabbit numbers in the UK have declined by around 60 per cent over the last 20 years. |
That is sad news. |
But let’s cheer ourselves up with a recap of the vocabulary we’ve discussed today, starting with a fan of. |
When someone is a fan of something, they are keen on it, they like it a lot. |
If you’re not a fan of something – you don’t like it. |
We mentioned endemic - meaning very common or strongly established in a place or situation. |
And we talked about a warren – an underground area where rabbits live, but also a building or a part of a town where there are lots of confusing passageways or streets where it is easy to get lost. |
A predator is an animal that hunts and kills another animal. |
Paradoxical describes things that have two opposing characteristics making it hard to understand. |
And a trickster is someone who deceives people to get what they want. |
Well, I’m no trickster, it really has been six minutes so it’s time to call it a day. |
Please join us next time. |
Bye for now. |
Goodbye! |