Wild rabbits are hunted extensively across Europe, Australia, and North America, raising welfare questions about humaneness of methods, wounding rates, and the suffering of non-target animals.
Rabbit hunting presents genuine welfare challenges. Shooting can produce rapid death when accurate, but high wounding rates mean significant numbers of rabbits die slowly from injuries. Snaring causes considerable suffering through stress, injury, and prolonged confinement, and frequently catches non-target animals. Biological control using myxomatosis is particularly concerning from a welfare perspective — infected rabbits die slowly over 1-2 weeks with systemic disease. Where rabbit control is genuinely necessary for agricultural or ecological reasons, the most welfare-conscious approaches use precision shooting, quick-dispatch ferreting, or humane trap-and-kill systems with frequent monitoring.