Spain’s rich history of bullfighting has long garnered much attention around the globe from both animal rights activists seeking the sport’s destruction and die-hard traditionalists hoping to preserve the spectacle as an important national custom. During a wave of policy wins for animal rights activists, Spanish television dropped bullfighting from its TV schedule last year.

This time around, opposing groups in Europe are having their own public duels over two smaller animals: birds and bunnies.

In Malta, a point of high traffic for birds migrating between Europe and Africa, a rise illegal hunting has spurred a conservationist attack in the efforts of deterring the hunters. Members of the group BirdLife Malta, who have set up camps to prey on the bird hunters so as to protect the species that are endangered.

In Sweden, bunnies are being used for slightly more noble causes than sport – the city administration of Stockholm has hired hunters to kill overpopulated rabbits, whose bodies are being used to fuel a heating plant in central Sweden. The Stockholm residents themselves are uncomfortable with the killing and use of the rabbits, whereas the residents of the town hosting the heating plant are comfortable with the process.

Animal rights debates have traditionally held a place close to our hearts in America, but in Europe, oddly enough, the spats have been publicized gradually and only very recently. Known for their disgust for vegetarianism and adherence to primarily meat-based diets, the Europeans could finally begin turning over a leaf under which animals are thought to need increasingly fair treatment.

"People in Europe are finally beginning to accept the animal welfare message," Kate Fowler-Reeves, head of campaigns for the UK's largest animal rights group said last year.