Describing target species as 'pests' is a dubious justification. Rats are universally unpopular I suppose, are you going after those? Spare the fluffly bunnies, why not foxes (bit of a payback there, eh?), stray dogs and cats, politicians?
Because unlike foxes, rats and politicians rabbits, wood pigeons and squirrels are all quite edible and exist in abundance locally. Thinning out their numbers benefits the environment.
Are you really the crack shot who can guarantee a safe kill every time?
Based on my abilities to reliably knock down coin sized targets at 35m, I'd say I'm quite capable of killing a rabbit in a far more humane manner than, say, the methods of industrial killing used to end the life of a battery chicken. It's all relative, of course; but I'm beginning to think that on balance, it's better to eat a wild rabbit than a box of battery-laid eggs. Even if I do miss every so often.
Is hunting pests for food scalable? If we all went hunting bunnies soon there would be no wild bunnies, just bunny farms with beaters to drive the bunnies towards the guns.
Of course it's not scalable. But not doing it at all is probably as bad as everyone doing it.
Ham, you're right. I'm starting to think that eating
some kinds of meat
might be no worse than my current 'unthinking veggie' mode. It's not just about comparing it against intensive farming - but I can't deny that even as a vegetarian, I do very much consume the products of this food industry.
Even if I don't actually eat flesh at the moment, I'm still very much responsible for animal death and suffering. Perhaps doing the killing myself would be less hypocritical?