National Bilby Day and the future of the Easter Bilby

The Easter Bilby is a relatively recent Australian phenomenon, but in a land where rabbits have been viewed as the Enemy, Easter Bunnies never made a lot of sense.  So it was a great marketing strategy to reshape the bunny into a bilby: lengthen his nose and tail, give him claws and a squat stance and – hey presto – a politically correct, environmentally friendly chocolate marsupial.  Since most of us city dwellers have never seen a bilby anyway, anatomical accuracy isn’t essential.