SAY “Easter” to me and two images come to mind. One is of the many Aldermaston anti-nuclear bomb marches. The marches started in 1958 and introduced thousands of young — and older — people, including a teenage Frosty, to political protest and action.

The other Easter memory? It was the often chocolate Easter Bunnies that came with the Easter Eggs. Rabbits, like eggs, are often used as a symbol of fertility or rebirth and have long been associated with spring. As so often is the case, the Christian Church nicked the pagan imagery and legends and incorporated them in their own Easter resurrection celebrations.

Part of any romantic image of our British countryside has to be that loveable bunny. Yet the rabbit is a non-native species that was bought here as an easy source of fresh meat by Roman soldiers who had drawn the short straw and been sent to the cold and unwelcoming islands they called Albion just off the west coast of mainland Europe.

Since then rabbits have become more and more common here. The British population nowadays is around 40 million, although at the moment populations are reducing, in some cases dramatically. They have long fluctuated over the centuries.

Rabbit fans have bred well over 300 species of ornamental and pet rabbits, some with long hair, some with even longer ears. Pet rabbits are still popular despite new exotic pet rivals like bird-eating spiders, Siberian hamsters or meerkats.

Our wild rabbit is officially named the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Today it has been introduced to every continent except Antarctica.

In Britain and in many countries of what was once the British empire we introduced rabbits and other animals for what was somewhat inaccurately known as “sport shooting” — or simply for meat. As with so much of what we did in the empire it often had disastrous effect on existing ecologies, species and cultures.

Perhaps the worst example of this was Australia where, with no natural predators, rabbit populations rocketed. The huge number of rabbits completely destroyed many commercial arable crops and even dug vast warrens that actually eroded and collapsed the landmass itself.

Male rabbits are called bucks, females are called does. An older term for an adult rabbit is coney — a throwback to those Romans who first bought them here and called them — in Latin — cuniculus.

A group of rabbits is sometimes known a warren, though this more accurately refers to the multiple clusters of burrows where large extended families of rabbits live.

Almost since they arrived with the Romans our rabbits have long been domesticated. Beginning in the Middle Ages the rabbit has been widely kept for both fresh meat and fur. Rabbit breeding started in ancient Rome.

The earliest farmed varieties were important sources of meat and so became bred larger than wild rabbits. Rabbit fur is prized for its warmth and softness and was another good reason for farming rabbits.

Black rabbits — desirable for their rare fur — were introduced to the Bristol Channel island of Lundy as early as 1183. 11,000 were captured in 1929 alone. It was still considered to be abundant during a survey in 1953.

The myxomatosis virus reached Lundy in 1983, probably through deliberate introduction. Following the initial population collapse numbers have fluctuated widely with major outbreaks in 1992 and 1996.

As recently as 2013 there were reported to be at least 1,000 rabbits still on the island, since then numbers have plummeted and on a visit this year no rabbits, black or otherwise were to be seen.

One of the most distinctive and attractive features of the British rabbit is its large ears: they make up more than a seventh of total skin surface. Rabbit ears function as heat control radiators. The rabbit pumps variable amounts of blood through the ears and the large surface area allows a very sophisticated amount of control of body temperature.

Rabbits are herbivores, grazing on grass, leafy weeds and on arable crops. They are unbelievably sophisticated shitters. They pass two distinct types of poo, hard droppings and soft black jelly like pellets.

The soft black jobbies are known as night droppings. It is unlikely that you have ever seen them as these are immediately eaten by the rabbit. They do this to get maximum nutrients from their food. Apparently rabbit poo is packed full of vitamins and minerals.

Rabbits graze heavily and rapidly for roughly the first half-hour of a grazing period usually in the late afternoon followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. If it doesn’t feel threatened the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours, casually grazing at intervals.

By this time the rabbit will be passing many hard droppings. These are simply waste pellets and our rabbit won’t eat them.

The average female rabbit becomes sexually mature at three to eight months of age and can conceive at any time of the year for the duration of her life. However, egg and sperm production can begin to decline after three years.

During mating, the male rabbit will mount the female rabbit from behind and insert his penis into the female and make rapid pelvic hip thrusts — rabbit scientists armed with stop watches have recorded the actual time of rabbit sex and it lasts only 20–40 seconds.

After, the male will throw himself backwards off the female. The scientists have given a scientific name to this coupling. They call it “at it like rabbits.”

Rabbit gestation is short with an average period of 31 days. The size of a single litter can range from four to 12 kits allowing a female to deliver up to 60 new kits a year. After birth, the female can become pregnant again as early as the next day.

Rabbits are partially nocturnal but often sleep with their eyes open, so that sudden movements will awaken the rabbit to respond to potential danger.

Shooting is still a major threat to rabbit populations but nowhere near as much as it once was. The rabbit is still a prolific agricultural pest and as well as shooting landowners have not been averse to waging war on them using very nasty diseases such as flea-borne myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus.

Rabbits are almost never found infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.

Rabbit populations can really get out of control as they did in Australia. All kinds of means of control were tried. Huge fences were stretched hundreds of miles across the outback. They tried poisoning, gassing, shooting, trapping them with snares and many other types of traps — most failed spectacularly.

Most effective was the use of myxomatosis and a huge range of specially bred diseases. In Australia and New Zealand rabbits are considered to be such a pest that landowners are legally obliged to control wild rabbits on their land.

In many parts of the world rabbits are still hunted for their meat. In some parts rabbits are hunted using ferrets and dogs and even birds of prey.

If a captured or injured rabbits will need to be killed. What else would you call the sharp fatal blow to the back of its head? A rabbit punch of course.

Globally rabbits account for 200 million tons of meat produced annually. That’s something like 1.2 billion rabbits slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. The largest producers of rabbit meat are China, Russia, Italy, France and Spain.

Here in Britain fresh rabbit can still be found in good country butcher shops and markets. Some supermarkets sell frozen imported rabbit meat. At farmers’ markets rabbits are sometimes seen hanging, un-butchered and in their fur. That’s how we buy ours to cook in a rich red wine and vegetable casserole.

Both in folklore and modern children’s stories, rabbits often appear as sympathetic characters. Watership Down made rabbits incredibly popular but didn’t stop far too many pubs advertising “Watership Down — you’ve read the book, seen the film, now try the pie.”

Ignore all the nonsense. Go out for a nice Good Friday walk and spot a few families of rabbits. Come home to a nice rabbit stew. Just don’t offer it to your vegan granddaughter. Happy Easter.