Amami Rabbit Museum Quru Guru

This facility is a conservation and research facility for the Amami rabbit, a special natural monument. The name of the facility, "Kuruguru," comes from Shimaguchi (a dialect of Amami) and means "dark black," representing the Amami rabbit's coat color and the image of life circulating round and round.
Here, visitors can take on the role of a rabbit and explore the forest at night. They will be startled by cars that suddenly appear and huge predators, and will push aside plants and flowers taller than themselves to search for forest creatures that react to the black light. The facility is designed to encourage visitors to see the rabbits' perspective and become aware of their feelings and fears, fostering empathy. Furthermore, the treatment room for rescued rabbits is fully open to visitors, showing them the reality of injuries sustained in traffic accidents and other accidents. Surrounded by the nature of Amami Oshima, the facility is an opportunity to think about the coexistence of humans and rabbits as it watches over rescued rabbits until they are released back into the wild.

For tourists and people living on Amami Oshima, the current situation is that Amami rabbits are something that "we know about, but they have little to do with our daily lives." Because of this, it is difficult to personally understand the various problems surrounding rabbits, such as roadkill (traffic accidents) and attacks by feral cats (domestic cats that have gone feral), and the wonderful biodiversity unique to Amami Oshima with which they coexist. Therefore, an approach that could be intuitively understood by the body and mind was needed for visitors, rather than a long list of redundant explanations.

The greatest feature of this facility is that children who visit can explore the night forest of Amami, which has been expanded and reconstructed five times larger than usual, to experience the scale of a rabbit. As they push aside plants and flowers taller than themselves in search of forest creatures, they experience the fear of cars jumping out at them and large predators from a rabbit's perspective, which gives them an opportunity to think about the threats that rabbits face, such as roadkill and wild cats, as something that affects them personally. In addition, the treatment room for rescued rabbits is fully open to the public, providing a place where children can see the rabbits as they are, injured and bleeding.

The tour is designed to allow visitors to experience for themselves, both the fun parts of learning and the reality that makes them want to turn away, and to understand with their bodies and minds, with the aim of cultivating empathy for this special natural monument.