
SciShow - Infusion - Invasive Species -The Story of Bunny
Hank Green frames invasive species through a fable: a pet rabbit named Bunny gets released onto a fictional planet called Wonderful, and the film tracks what happens next. Freed from predators and competition, Bunny reproduces unchecked, strips the local vegetation, and pushes native species toward the edges of survival, a scenario built to mirror real invasions like feral rabbits in Australia and other transplanted species that have cost ecosystems billions. Green uses the device to walk through the actual mechanisms of ecological damage: outcompeting native animals for food and habitat, shifting fire patterns, and spreading disease into populations with no resistance to it. The episode also turns to people working the other side of the problem, including hunters paid to cull invasive animals and researchers applying new monitoring technology to track and contain them. By keeping the story anchored to one animal instead of a global survey, the episode stays concrete about how an invasive species actually unravels a food web, and what containing one looks like in practice.