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Saturday, April 3, 2021

Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit

by Cole Herrold

Rabbits are one of the most beloved pets that people get. While children year-round want an actual bunny for Easter as opposed to the nightmare that is the Easter Bunny for those not traumatically scarred by watching the not-so kid-friendly Watership Down, it can be a fun and loveable furry addition to the family. When people think of rabbits, they, outside that Lovecraftian Easter Bunny, tend to imagine tiny, sometimes overly fed, long-eared animals that have a hardcore urge to eat vegetables. In this way, we often feel that because we keep them as pets and for the avid outdoorsmen hunt them that there is nothing new regarding these animals, especially in the world of Cryptozoology. However, in California, there was a case of a rabbit whose proportions would have made it fit in with the other colossal kaiju creeps in the cult film Night of the Lepus.

It was in March of 1969 when Stephen P. Alpert, a geologist working towards his Ph.D., was out in the Northern part of L.A. County near Vasquez Rocks State Park is an area known as Tick Canyon. He was deployed to this particular area as part of a UCLA Geology project which focused on mapping the various rock kinds in the surrounding area. It was during this particular day, as he scanned the horizon mapping certain points down, that he noticed something bizarre on the landscape. A large dark form that seemed to almost blend in with the rocky terrain. He got closer and got to about 7ft from the figure when it raised up, and he could see that what he had been looking at was a kind of bizarre animal. The creature stood about five and a half feet tall, had large ears and a long face, and a dark brown body with muscular forepaws. He estimated that the bulky yet slender animal was about 150-175 lbs. Stephen stared at the anomalous animal as he stared back and thought, "that looks like a kangaroo! What is a kangaroo doing out here?". As he scanned the body, however, he noticed that the creature was missing something that seemed to indicate that what he was looking at was not a marsupial, and that was the lack of a pouch. He watched as the animal proceeded to turn and bound away. As the animal turned, he got his official confirmation that this was nothing of the classical marsupial variety, for instead of the classic long tail seen in kangaroos, wallaroos, and wallabies, this animal had in its place a white cotton ball tail as seen in rabbits and hares. He watched the creature until it finally managed to hop out of sight.


Tick Canyon

Alpert, amazed at what he had seen but still under pressure to complete his mapping, did not run off to tell of his encounter until the next day at the college. Alpert received his Ph.D. in 1974 in both Paleontology and Geology, and Alpert's story eventually became a tale that would be remembered only by the most senior members of the geology department. However, encounters with what has been called the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit did not end. Other students and faculty who had worked in the area would also come forward to tell of seeing a large cotton-tailed monstrosity jumping and hopping in the area. Many of these eyewitnesses never even had heard of Alpert's sighting leading to an eventual “hypothetical answer” to the creature by a member of the UCLA Geology Department Alumni Magazine Dean Hall. He writes in his article "The Tick Canyon Rabbit" that in 1991 upon exiting a canyon near Davenport Road, he had the almost mirage-like chance of encountering a red bikini-clad woman riding an elephant. The two exchanged mundane conversations, something that under the circumstances seems to be the last thing that would be discussed until the perturbed pachyderm began throwing sand with its trunk over its back and also at Hall. Hall decided that this was enough and politely left the area, deciding not to tell any of his colleagues about his experience since it seemed pretty ludicrous. He decided to keep it secret, that is until a few weeks later when he had reached an area close to his encounter with the beauty on the elephant. While in this area, he had heard a horrible din of sounds that rumbled through the air. Getting closer, he realized that the noises were coming from a property just off in the distance, and he could see cages and fenced-off areas where multitudes of animals were running and confined. Upon getting closer to the farm, he was approached by the owner, a man by the name of Brian, who allowed him to come in and examine his menagerie muttering the words "as long as you don't get eaten." Once Hall at a good look at every species Brian owned, the two began to talk about his research and why he was in the area. While conversating and as a way of getting his newfound acquaintance a good chuckle, he broached the topic of the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit as well as his own bizarre experience. The owner listened intently to the story, and straight-faced exclaimed that Hall did, in fact, encounter a woman on an elephant and that the students did, in fact, see a Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit, perhaps even two. With great hesitance, the owner explained how two of his wallaroos several years ago had escaped his compound and managed to lead into the sightings of what had been dubbed the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit.

Years later, after the publication by Hall when the book Weird California was being written, Stephen Alpert wrote to the authors Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle, and Mike Marinacci about the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit being the first widely distributed account of the creature and in his recounting of his sighting proceeded in giving some insight into Hall's conclusions of what he saw. First, he stated that the timing of a few or even several years is off as when he had seen the creature, it was almost twenty years before the wallaroos had supposedly escaped. Secondly, while there were some morphological features similar to a wallaroo, such as body and feet shape, yet the haunches were much more significant than what was seen in a kangaroo or wallaroo, and the ears were easily two to three times taller, almost being ridiculously Looney Tunes esque. Thirdly is obviously the tail which was not the long tapering tail seen but the small cotton ball variety seen in virtually all rabbits and hares—ultimately making it highly unlikely that what he saw was a wallaroo but a bizarre leaping Leporidae.

With that end piece of information that ends everything with the bizarre case of the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit. This creature is perhaps one of the more plausible cryptids out there in regard to what it is, seeing as rabbits are a species we are aware of and have a great deal of interaction with. An enormous variation of 3-5 ft might seem a stretch, but evolutionarily speaking does make sense since that is how megafauna occur; organisms of more diminutive stature eventually work their way to becoming larger even modern-day humans are giants compared to our Australopithecine ancestors. In fact, on the Spanish island of Minorca, fossil evidence of the largest rabbit has been found. The species called Nuralagus Rex was almost two feet tall, making it nearly six times the size of the common European rabbit, making it a mammoth mammal when looking at rabbit species but when comparing it to a human was still relatively small, especially if one were to suggest this creature as a candidate for what could be seen in California.


Nuralagus Rex the giant megafauna rabbit

While there's no modern living rabbit in the wild of this size that we know of, there are domesticated breeds called Flemish Giants who can reach lengths of about 4ft which is the size of the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit. Possibly a few of these specimens had escaped captivity which is the only area where they exist and managed to carve a niche for themselves out in the canyon areas. Yet if this were the case, one would think there would have been some sort of search for the missing giants, which, as far as I can tell, never occurred. So, while suggesting the possibility that this is why there are reports of giant rabbits in Tick Canyon seems unlikely, it is something that is possible.

A Flemish Giant Rabbit

Another possibility, even though it seems to be ruled out based on Stephen Alpert's testimony, is that what he and more than likely the other students saw was indeed a wallaroo. The other sightings he stated that other students encountered could very well be a wallaroo since the details on the other sightings are nonexistent. His sighting is the only one that seems to indicate something else entirely, and even with some of his comparisons and descriptions, it does seem possible that he might not have gotten the best look or mis-saw some of the features of the creature leading to the more rabbit-like appearance as opposed to the actual marsupial features which are not far off from those of a Leporidae. If we are to take his account as accurate, however, at least with his sighting, this cant be the case. There is some wiggle room with the wallaroo hypothesis with the other students and faculty, but with him, it would clearly be something more like a rabbit or hare.


A Wallaroo- potential answer to the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit

While the only category that this creature seems to fit in is either marsupial or Leporidae, which is farther than what most cryptid encounters, lead us this animal's true identity is a mystery. There are reports of what are known as "phantom kangaroos," which are kangaroos that are out of place and they do often appear in America and also are linked to Devil Monkey reports, yet reports of giant rabbits are basically unheard of compared to giant sloths or even bizarrely enough giant beavers but that is not to say that what was encountered in Tick Canyon was not just that. Cryptozoology always has a trick or surprise up its sleeve, whether it is giantizing or shrinking a known type of animal or giving it human characteristics; there is always something new or bizarre that pops up. the Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit is no exception, and while Hall felt he placed the final nail in the coffin I wonder if to this day people are still seeing this reject from Night of the Lepus wandering and hopping around the canyons and sandy terrain of California.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/ Leporidae/Marsupial
Location: Tick Canyon, California
Sighted: March 1969 until sometime in the 1990s

Works Cited:

Weird California by Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle, and Mike Marinacci
Hall, Dean "Tick Canyon Giant Rabbit." UCLA Geology Department Alumni Magazine. Approx. 1997.

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