In former days women and children handled the rabbits, and men hunted larger game, at least that’s how it was handled in my family. My grandmother was an excellent shot, and with ten children...rabbit stew was on the menu, back in those days.
Some men hunted rabbits, but mostly young boys, and squirrels, ground hogs...etc. They did live off the land 50-100 yrs ago, but I know men in these mtns, who still do.
I find this very funny, you started out bitching about beavers and that there were turning them loose in places they had never been. And I tell you that they, the beavers were all over the country. Beaver was the main fur that the mountain men were after. I tell you they were catching rabbits as a joke and you still did not get the fact that I was saying you were a little on the dense side. Been fun, oh, and I made straight A’s in history when I was going to college. I grew up on a farm in the southwestern hills of Virginia hunting and eating rabbits and other tasty animals.