Which crops do rabbits eat ??

as an addendum - I had heard that the reason the shot wood pigeons end up going to France is because of these rules - because the French ignore a degree of EU silliness. (I used to shoot in England, getting my first shotgun at 9 and my own shotgun certificate at 16.)

 

Most of our local butchers sell them, and many of the country pubs have rabbit pie on the specials board most of the time.

The reason rabbit has apparently fallen out of favour, in my opinion at least, is purely about silly bureaucracy. For the general population to eat rabbit meat, someone has to go and catch the rabbits. Anti-poaching laws mean that unless you have the express permission from the landowner where you are hunting, and abide by a number of rules about methods of making the kill, then if Mr Plod catches you, there's a good chance you'll be spending time in one of Her Majesty's Hotels. So not many people do it, and of those that do, even fewer will risk selling their catch and being grassed on.

Easy enough to solve I hear you say, simply get the landowner's permission before you go shooting. Well, if the landowner gives you permission, then he/she is largely responsible for what you do on his/her land. If you shoot yourself in the foot, with the silly litigious way the world now works, could you bring a case against the landowner for failing to make adequate provisions for your safety? If take a shot, miss, and your bullet strays beyond the boundary of where you've been given permission to shoot, and hits somebody or somebody's property or livestock, who is responsible?

So it is easier for landowners to just decline any requests for permission to hunt on their land. Which is unfortunate because those same landowners have a legal responsibility to control the rabbit population on their land, and it would solve so many problems if someone else was to just sneak in at dusk and do the job for them.

 

Most of our local (non national chain store) butchers sell them, is it a "northern" thing, I hope not because a well made rabbit stew is a gift from God and should be experienced by everyone.
By the way, they love Radish tops!

 

Clueless

In USA almost all landowners of decent sized tracts of land lease out the hunting rights to individuals or clubs, usually this is about the amount of real estate tax. (in USA all land pays a tax based on the property value to the county. This pays for local government, schools, police, firemen, and so on, it is not cheap. If you neglect to pay for three years your property is sold at a tax auction.)

This has spawned a liability insurance industry for hunters on leased land. All landowners who lease out hunting rights require the leasee to carry this, and time has shown the actuarial risk is so low that the cost of the insurance is very nominal. This will also cover fires accidently set and such.