I’m a fairly handy rifle shot these days and I swear that learning to shoot rabbits off sticks in my 20s trained me well- hope they come back in numbers by the time my son needs to learn rifle handling.Barely any around me in Sussex. I wouldn't shoot one know if I was asked to. If I see a pair on my place I immediately try and reduce predators in the local area to give them a chance. Doesn't seem to help much though. On the upside there are more hares around there have been in decades.
It’s sad really, I grew up and learnt a huge amount hunting rabbits. Its going to be hard for my boy to learn the same things so easily
Same here on my patch in SE Cornwall.RHD has pretty well wiped out rabbits on a lot of ground in Mid Wales...pockets are still there but nowhere near the numbers we used to have.
I wonder if they will ever recover to those days ?He reckoned the rabbit population had dropped from 60M to around 20M.
What are you shooting themAm very lucky still got healthy amounts of rabbits on few hill farms 3 smallish fields worth
The badgers could be something to do with Calving season…I travel around Scotland with my work.
The roads that I travelled in my youth no longer have rabbits as the main road kill, in fact when I travelled some of the roads last week there were none.
Instead there were more badgers lying dead on the road side.
I also spoke to Simon Whitehead at the Scone Gamefair in 2024.
He reckoned the rabbit population had dropped from 60M to around 20M.
What are the disease spreading vectors you speak of bringing bad things from France.I think it is more likely that the disease has spread from France, via the usual vectors to be honest.