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OFFBEAT

‘Aroused’ rabbits reproduced in tennis club wreckage

Hundreds of well-bred rabbits took the opportunity to make new acquaintances and reproduce when a roof collapsed at Sweden's premier rabbit show in Nyköping in February.

Published: 10 April 2010 12:09 CEST

The Local reported at the time that the Nyköping exhibition, 100 kilometres south of Stockholm, had attracted 1,648 rabbits and their owners to the vast indoor tennis complex.

When the roof collapsed in the wake of a spate of heavy snowfalls, many of the prize pets found their cages had opened and they were at liberty to roam as they pleased amid the debris.

Workers tasked with clearing the fallen roof soon found that the quality bunnies had not lain idle.

“They made new friends and they became a bit aroused by the incident. The builders told me it was a veritable circus in there,” one rabbit breeder told public broadcaster SVT’s local Sörmland affiliate.

With rabbits of all stripes and colours trapped in the wreckage the pairing frenzy has thrown up all manner of new combinations, as Dwarf Hotots nuzzled up to British Giants and Lionheads mounted Himalayans.

When the dust had settled and relieved owners returned home with their rescued rabbits, some 50 to 70 breeders found they were the beneficiaries of surprise litters, local newspaper Södermanlands Nyheter reports.

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OFFBEAT

Swedish police remove sculpture mistaken for suicide victim

Police on the island of Gotland removed a public sculpture from the Galgberget nature reserve near Visby on the grounds that it is just too creepy.

Published: 9 March 2019 16:50 CET
Swedish police remove sculpture mistaken for suicide victim
The gallows at Galgeberget. Photo: Artifex/WikiCommons
According to local news site Hela Gotland, someone was out for a stroll on Galgeberget (the Gallows Hill) on Wednesday when they saw what they thought was a body hanging after a suicide. Local police were contacted but when they went to investigate they instead found a sculpture by artist Jessica Lundeberg. 
 
The artwork, entitled ‘The Watcher in the Woods’, is a partially transparent plate sculpture that looks like a spooky little girl. 
 
 
Despite discovering that the suspected suicide victim was actually artwork, police determined that Lundeberg’s piece could scare others and thus took the sculpture down. 
 
“It was decided that if it were to remain, more people would likely be frightened in the same way,” Gotland police spokesman Ayman Aboulaich told Radio P4 Gotland. 
 
Lundeberg told Hela Gotland that the sculpture has been at Galgeberget since a public art project last summer and that this was the first time it had caused any concern. She said ‘The Watcher in the Woods’ was the only piece that was allowed to remain after the end of the project. But now it is there no more. 
 
 
Lundeberg has taken the sculpture back to her studio. While she hopes it will eventually return to Galgeberget, the artist told Hela Gotland it seems unlikely.  
 
She said that the sculpture was damaged by police. 
 
“It was ragged, dismantled and broken. I was horrified when I saw it,” she said. 
 
Police have reportedly promised to pay any necessary repair costs.
 
Although the person who reported the sculpture to the police has not spoken with the media, their jump to conclusions could perhaps be attributed to the nature reserve’s macabre history. Galgeberget is still home to gallows that were used to hang criminals for centuries. The last execution to be held at the site was in 1845, according to Hela Gotland. 
 
 
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