I was wondering what animal is killed most (by number) between cottontail rabbit and white tailed deer. Thanks in advance!

It really probably depends on where you are at..here in southern Illinois the rabbit numbers are really down it seems like..Around where I live I would say whitetails, but thats just in my area

Difficult to quantify. Deer takes are tallied and reported, so an accurate # is obtainable. Rabbits and squirrels in NY you are allowed 5 a day over a 5 month season in some areas, and no reporting is neccessary. No where near the number of small game hunters there used to be also.

Our Missouri Rifle Deer Season is only for 11 days,then You have the Youth Deer Season that is for 2 days and 2 different weekend for a total of 4 days,then there's an Antlerless Season and the Muzzle Loader Deer Season and several different "Managed Deer Hunts",not to mention we have Archery Deer Season that runs about 4 months!....Rabbit Season goes for quite a while...and You can have several in your possession...I'd say more Rabbits are killed than Deer.I don't do much Rabbit Hunting but I know several Guys that go a lot and they are running the smaller Beagles "Rabbit Dogs" and they really enjoy it.

I know a lot of people in South Alabama and N.W. Florida that deer hunt, but I don't know anybody that rabbit hunts..

I would say that there are more deer being harvested than rabbits currently. There are far more deer hunters out there. However, rabbit hunters often take more than just one rabbit in a season or a day. The amount of small game hunters is way down from what it was even just ten years ago. So, I'd say deer are harvested at a higher rate.
-Jake

They are all over in Northern Illinois... Niles is swarming with rabbits for some strange reason.

My guess would be deer. While there is a much higher bag limit for rabbits, there are far fewer people that actually pursue them. Here in OH, I'd say that about 2 out of every 3 "deer hunters" solely hunt during the gun season. For the vast majority of those people, that 1 week of the year is the only time they will spend hunting, never even hunting for rabbits.

Also, as others have mentioned, the amount of people that hunt small game is declining. One other factor that I didn't see mentioned was coyotes. While they have an effect on the deer population, they decimate the rabbit population (and most other small game for that matter), and there are more coyotes than ever right now.

All things considered, there were over 260k deer harvested in Ohio in 09-10. I can't even begin to believe that there were that many rabbits killed that season.

i killed 5 deer in nw florida and south alabama. i killed 93 rabbits in nw florida and south alabama...............tony