Watership Down Hazel's sensitivity to Fiver with the "far more mechanical" attitude of the bucks towards the does portrayed as "little more than passive baby-factories". In the "New York Times Book Review" essay "Male Chauvinist Rabbits", Selma G. Lanes observed that the does are only "instruments of reproduction" to prevent the achievement of reaching "Watership Down" from "becoming a hollow victory". Lanes argued that this view of female rabbits came from Adams rather than his source text, Ronald Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in which the rabbit world is matriarchal, and new warrens are initiated by dissatisfied young females. In
Watership Down a two-part, two-hour dramatization of "Watership Down" by Neville Teller was broadcast by BBC Radio 4. In November 2016, a new two-part two-hour dramatization, written by Brian Sibley, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In the 1970s, the book was released by Argo Records read by Roy Dotrice, with musical background—music by George Butterworth performed by Academy of St Martin in the Fields under the direction of Neville Marriner. In 1984, "Watership Down" was adapted into a four-cassette audiobook by John Maher in association with the Australian Broadcasting Company's Renaissance Players. Produced by John Hannaford and narrated by Kerry Francis,