alt Hacker News> modern Britain were probably much more eager to hunt and eat rabbits than modern Australians are.
Modern as in today or modern as in, say 1940s?
I can state as a fact that here in Australia my father, born 1935 and still alive and within 20 feet as I type, kept his mother and younger siblings alive by snaring, trapping, and shooting rabbits through the WWII years his father was overseas in North Africa and Europe.
Further, the bulk of the non native population in Australia until recently was essentially composed of "modern Britains" who were so eager to hunt rabbits they're insisted on bringing their cursed invasives here.
The root of the issue here was more the sparse numbers of people hunting rabbits and the vastness of the space sans people the rabbits had for expansion.
Not even the dingos and European introduced foxes in Australia had sufficient numbers to make a dent.
Although it has spawned a lot of papers on cat, fox, dingo, rabbit, bilby, quokka population dynamics and predator - prey cycles.
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"late medieval and early modern" = some time between the Plague and the industrial revolution.
"modern" = after the industrial revolution, which implies broad availability of farmed meat, leading to a gradual decline of hunting.
Yes, predation is a major factor in rabbit population control. And I'm counting British people as formidable rabbit killers, so I think we're in agreement there.
Did you eat them as a kid too? Growing up in rural Australia, I regularly ate rabbit in the late 70s and early 80s. It's been a while since I've had one though.