Bright Eyes writer Mike Batt orders rabbit cull

The man who composed Bright Eyes, the signature song from the animated film Watership Down, which followed the travails of rabbits searching for a safe haven, has admitted that he has ordered the massacre of hundreds of bunnies on his country estate.

In his defence, Mike Batt, who also wrote Remember You're A Womble, claims that his killing spree, or cull, was not in any sense gratuitous. The composer says that he was impelled to hire a marksman to bring down the number of rabbits, which had damaged property and had even chewed through electric cables.

A spokesman said Batt, 59, said he felt terrible about the killings. His estate was over-run by lots of rabbits, she said. He deeply regretted it but he had to do it. Batt is a rabbit lover and has kept many as pets, his spokesman added.

His ballad Bright Eyes, which was sung by Art Garfunkel, accompanied images of brave rabbits battling their way to freedom in the film Watership Down. The real Watership Down, which is said to have inspired Richard Adams's bestselling novel, is on fellow composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's estate, ten miles from Batt's in Farnham, Surrey.

But while there is no doubt rabbits can cause damage, Libby Anderson, of the charity Advocates for Animals, feels Batt's actions were a little extreme: We never support culling them, mainly because it is not a sustainable solution, she said. There is also a risk that animals will not be killed outright and will die a lingering and very painful death.