In reply to Choss:
What alternatives do you have?
Shooting - No way is every shot perfect.
Ferrets - Involves shooting or trapping in nets and then man handled
Snares - Either suffocates, or the rabbit sits there on a leash until it is man handled.
Netting - Again how to dispatch?
Hawks or hounds - there's a pretty way to go.
In all honesty, wild animals frequently have a grim death one way or another. Mother nature is inherently cruel when viewed through human emotions.
Unless you're perfectly vegan, then there will be double standards.
Our farmed food or for that matter wild caught food/fur/fabric/glue all have to die some how.
From what I've seen, wild or farmed, humans generally try to make the end swift, but it is never pretty to sensitive eyes - is there a perfect way to die?
Hunters and farmers are not hardened sadists, they usually are compassionate to their environment.
That animal which is saved from fate one day, will live to die another.
Over population creates population crashes - disease, habitat/food shortages, predator populations increase etc.
Humans manipulate virtually every meter of britain in some way. Wild is basically a falacy, controlled and regulated is normal. right or wrong, if that control extends to rabbits, then humans will do it or we will face the same population control pressures ourselves.
If we are exploiting a scarce resource, again, the bunny gets it.
Glad I'm not a bunny in my world... But then is our fate superior in any way?