The Bunny Incident: An Exclusive Interview with Mr. Michael Pool
The infamous bunny which broke into Newman in late October. (Photo courtesy of Mikaila Chefitz ‘23 and the Newman yearbook committee)
On October 26th, 2022, a wild rabbit entered the school building. Recounting the riveting tale of the bunny’s eventual rescue and release is Dean of Students Mr. Michael Pool.
EL: Are there any theories as to how the bunny actually entered the school building?
MP: I think the bunny probably entered the school building through some sort of propped or opened doorway. We’re not sure which doorway, whether it was the front, or maybe the back when an athletics team was leaving. Definitely, a mystery that’s yet to be solved is which doorway the bunny, or bunnies, have entered through.
EL: Do you know when were the first sightings of the bunny?
MP: I’m not sure when the first sighting was exactly. I know Mr. Richardson saw the bunny very early on, and then a number of students and faculty became aware. We of course alerted Aldahir, who helped us try and find the bunny. On that fateful day, we saw the bunny and we were able to escort it out of the building safely.
EL: About that incident – how did the responsibility befall you?
MP: That’s a good question. I will say that the day was October 27th. There were questions about if the bunny was still in the building from the day before or not. We didn’t know if it was still around because people had lost track of it. It had run off and we didn’t know where it went. It was after school hours so we didn’t have very many people to help keep track of it, and it runs much faster than any of us.
EL: Yeah.
MP: So we were still questioning: did the bunny leave? Is it still in the building? The next morning we came in and right here in the front office where we leave out the fresh fruits, [Mathematics Instructor] Mr. Colin Schafer discovered that there were definitely some animal nibbles left on the bananas. We knew that was a likely sign that the bunny was still in the building, and I decided to check the security footage overnight for a bunny sighting. There was indeed a bunny sighting overnight, right here in the front lobby area. What happened was that we knew the bunny was still in the building so we started looking for it. What happened was then I was up in the tech room with Mr. Iwanicki later that day. We were chatting about some completely unrelated issue, and I believe it was [senior] Niall [Powers-Özyurt ‘23] who said “there’s the bunny.” The bunny was in the film room at the time when I just happened to be there. And so that’s when the pursuit began. I tried to gently approach it but it ran off very quickly into the Newman Room. At the time, George Washington University was giving a college presentation, so I had to interrupt the poor representative, who was beside herself after a wild rabbit had entered the chat. There happened to be some baskets and so we used those – someone had given me the baskets and I put two of them together. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
EL: Was there a lot of strategizing, or did you just try to ensnare the bunny in the fastest way possible?
MP: I didn’t want to touch it, but what happened was that we knew we needed to close the doors so that the bunny couldn’t escape. We didn’t want to stress it out or anything, but then I was able to gently put the bunny into the two baskets where it was safe for me and safe for the bunny.
EL: I understand that later on as you were trying to free the bunny from the building, it ran directly behind you; how was it recovered after that?
MP: I had captured the bunny in the Newman Room, I had successfully come down the short stairwell [by] the front office, and then not even ten feet from the door, the bunny had kicked around inside and then dislodged the two baskets from one another. This sort of makeshift cage that I had assembled had come apart, and so I no longer had control over the rabbit being enclosed. I tried to set it down on the ground to readjust the gap between the baskets, and as I was setting it down, the small bunny pushed through the gap and [ran] off. It ran through the cross-over stairwell, through the front room, and down the basement. By that time there were a number of students who were following me as well and helped me to create a human barrier to get the bunny out of the back stairwell in the basement area.
EL: Do we know that the bunny made it out of the building safely?
MP: Yes, it was verified. The bunny was escorted out of the building.
EL: Have there been other sightings of animals that remain in Newman?
MP: [Building Manager] Aldahir Merino informed me that there are still potentially some woodland creatures about the building, so we’re still on the hunt for potential rabbit friends around.
EL: What should a Newman student do if they happen to encounter a woodland creature on the premises?
MP: The best advice – don’t touch them and just alert an adult for safety purposes, and we can handle it from there. Always come to the front desk if needed.
EL: Do you feel personally changed after this experience?
MP: I think so. Whatever lies ahead for me, Newman and beyond, this is definitely a new skill that I sort of revived from my Ohio days, wrangling woodland creatures in the workplace. I can do a seminar [about this] later on. Live trapping on the fly – that was the way of life.
