The future of the coney in Great Britain

Adam Hart explores the shifting fortunes of our most recognisable mammal and asks what the countryside would be without them

Big John drew back with a little gasp, ‘My gracious, look at that!’ Robin, who was close on his heels, stopped dead. ‘What’s the matter, have you seen somebody?’ ‘No, rabbits, millions of ’em!’

“As far as the eye could see rabbits were dotted everywhere; on the riding edge, among the bushes, on the short green grass of the ride itself. Some were busy feeding, others sat up washing themselves like cats, or chasing each other in circles. The boys had never seen so many before.”

As a boy, I remember reading these words from BB’s wonderful children’s novel Brendon Chase with disbelief. Millions of rabbits in Britain? Surely not. Although just starting my shooting career, I was yet to mark the ‘rabbit’ column of my gamebook. My native Pembrokeshire seemed devoid of them.

Fifteen years later, my rabbit column has been marked twice: one shot on a woodcock walkabout and one retrieved by my labrador completely alive. Yet in Brendon Chase, the three brothers managed to survive eight months in the forest, eating rabbits and fashioning their pelts into clothes. How?

The outlaw brothers ran away from home in the 1920s when Britain’s rabbit population numbered 100 million. It now stands at 36 million a figure that has fluctuated wildly over the past century. What happened? Ever since the Normans established rabbits on our isles, their numbers have been inextricably linked to humans. Until the mid19th century, rabbit warrens were primarily owned by the landed gentry, who guarded the right to harvest their valuable meat and fur fiercely.

Feral population