Back in the late 50’s my Dad and uncle went rabbit hunting a few times with baseball bats in the prairie areas in the south side of Chicago near the Indiana border. He never let on they were rabbits, hid the meat and fried them up like fried chicken and served them for dinner. After a few times, eyeing those really long legs and saying “this doesn’t look like chicken” he finally relented and said it was rabbit. I remember crying saying “I can’t eat Thumper.” In later years he also told us about the depression when they would take cage traps by the grain mills and catch sparrows for sparrow stew.
My grandmother had pictures of the rabbit drives during the dustbowl in Oklahoma.
Dust Bowl Rabbit Drives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=65&v=0lV6CEI99UI