Rabbits on the run
ONCE THE STAPLE quarry of the rough shooter, the humble bunny has become something of a rarity in the countryside, with the result that generations of modern gundogs have little or no experience of them. Their scarcity may be most pronounced in southern Britain, but the rabbit population of the UK is a fraction of what it once was.
In the early 1950s, Britain’s wild rabbit population was estimated to be between 60 million and 100 million — a staggering number of animals. Shooting men took
