ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the early history of the wild rabbit. It evaluates the reasons why, by the 1930s, the rabbit was one of Britain's most common species of mammals, causing the state to implement an extensive, multifaceted campaign to control wild rabbits during Second World War. The chapter presents a case study which explores the changing relationship between wild rabbits and humans since the nineteenth century up to and including the onset of myxomatosis in the 1950s. Changes in land management, accompanied with the mass sale of estates, mainly to their tenant farmers, during the First World War and immediately afterwards, impacted on the rabbit population. In 1947 the Agriculture Act replaced the 1939 legislation, transferring the powers of Rabbits Order 1939 to County Agricultural Executive Committees. The new legislation introduced grant aid to assist farmers and landowners with costs incurred in controlling rabbits via the establishment of Pest Destruction Societies.
