I actively go out of my way to not kill honeybees.
Insects in the house are dead if I see them. Outside the house, only if they cause a problem. I had some yellowjackets make a nest in my front porch a couple years back so they had to go- they’re vicious bastards. Ditto for ground bees. Bumblebees, honeybees and the like are welcome.
Mice in the house or garage are trapped if I see any. Outside, I don’t mind the chipmunks that have a burrow outside my front window.
Insects and rodents are unwanted inside, but I’ll relocate some spiders outdoors. It’s been years since we’ve had a bat in the house but an open window will lure them back outside.
In general if it’s outside it’s live and let live. Even the bald faced hornet nests get a reprieve, had one in a light fixture above the deck. Never a problem with them. Though we did have a trapper come for muskrats that’s were tearing up my coir logs and destroying a shore stabilization project.
We’ve had foxes, raccoons, skunks, and woodchucks shelter under the deck. Fine.
Bunnies are ok here they have predators to keep them in check.
I’m not opposed to culling feral cats, hogs and dogs.
I hunt and fish, and I kill destructive pest animals or animals that are dangerous to me, my domestic animals, or my property.
My definition of pest animals is probably a lot looser than most–the rabbits in OP’s hypothetical I would have probably just not cared about–but I’m not a gardener, I pay to have my lawn mowed but don’t care about or like ornamental plants or vegetable gardens etc, so rabbits have no meaningful impact on my life. If I was growing vegetable plants and rabbits were eating them, I would take efforts to stop them (including trap/kill.)
I might consider disposing of a rabbit nest myself just because I do have large dogs, and there may be some health concerns with my dogs eating them (I doubt there are, but I could imagine maybe it’s a risk of spreading disease.)
I’ve also eaten tons of different varieties of meat, including horse. Horse is not actually a very good meat and I think that’s the main reason to not eat it when there are better meats out there.
I’ll kill insects. It’s pretty much unavoidable when driving. I have two cats that manage any mouse/rat problem I might have.
I don’t fish. a) It’s boring, b) I can’t stand the taste of freshwater fish, c) I live nowhere near an ocean and even if I did, see a.
I don’t hunt, either, although I do eat meat. I don’t have a problem with hunting (when done for food and/or in the cause of state-sanctioned wildlife management), but don’t get me started on trophy hunting. The reasons I don’t hunt are a) It looks boring, to say nothing of having to get up at zero-dark-thirty on a chilly November day, and b) I can’t stand the taste of wild game.
If I ever had to kill a mammal, I’d do it. If, say, a vicious dog was attacking me or my wife or one of my cats and the only way to stop it was by killing it, I’d do it. Also, if the day ever came that I had to kill and eat animals to live, I’d choose to live. I’d also kill an animal to put it out of its misery, if I ever had to. Highly unlikely, however.
Stinging/biting insect inside are history, as are houseflies. We’ve had pretty good luck putting out mint to get ants to leave. I’d have no problem trapping mice or rats, but we have cats and have never had a problem with them in this house. Spiders are welcome anywhere on the premises if they aren’t black widow or brown recluse.
I’ve fished and hunted, but don’t have the stomach for hunting anymore. I don’t have a problem with anyone hunting for food. I’ve caught, cleaned, and cooked fish relatively recently. I’ve made more of an attempt to buy humanely raised meat. I grew up on a farm, but it was by no means a factory farm.
When we were younger my brother shot a feral cat that had injured our cat and would no doubt have eventually killed him. Animal control wasn’t interested in coming to get the cat. I would have done the same.
I would not eat horse, dog, or cat. Octopus either, for that matter.
well, the answers did not show up.
In a nutshell though:
I don’t fish or hunt but have no objection to them, although I find trophy hunting to be morally abhorrent. I trap mice in my house with spring traps. I deal with wild and tame animals a lot more than I do with people, I live on a farm in the forest.
I won’t kill lab animals nor dissect those already dead although I have done the latter in school.
I’m not morally opposed to eating any kind of meat but in practice I eat little meat at all. I’m in favor of humane livestock farming.
One thing I don’t like with letting by spiders hang out in the corners of the ceiling is all the spider crap down below. Ever notice it, bunches of sooty looking little dots on the shelf. What are they eating up there?!
I’ve posted about this before.
Warning…PETA members beware!
I’ve killed dozens of parakeets because I worked in the warehouse for a pet wholesaler that brought in hundreds at a time. They were all kept in a walk-in cage for several weeks as quarantine to weed out the sickly ones. My job every morning was to enter the cage and sweep up the dead and dying. If it was on the ground, it was a candidate for culling. At first I thought it was cruel, but once I saw that the favorite target of the dead and dying was the soft eyes, I had no qualms about the culling.
When I helped my friend clean up the backroom of the pet shop, we’d find “pinkies”, baby mice and scooped them up into a trash bag. If you saw an adult running, you did a quick stomp to stop them.
I’ve also gassed by car exhaust, mice, rats and mongoose when caught in the cage. I also sadly gassed my pet bird because she was dying.
I have zero issues killing bugs, especially roaches, but try to avoid killing spiders because they’re beneficial. Crawling insects like centipedes, absolutely gonna die!
I always thought it was fly blood. It’s really hard to get off.
Scorpions. With a rubber mallet and hate in my heart