The Ground Game Act 1880 (43 & 44 Vict. c. 47) is a law that was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1880 by Gladstone's government, as a result of many complaints over many decades about the intolerable amount of damage that farmers' crops were suffering from damage by wild rabbits and hares and landowners not allowing farmland occupiers to kill them because of game preservation.

Ground Game Act 1880

Act of Parliament
Long title	An Act for the better protection of Occupiers of Land against injury to their Crops from Ground Game.
Citation	43 & 44 Vict. c. 47
Territorial extent	United Kingdom
Dates
Royal assent	7 September 1880
Other legislation
Amended by	Ground Game (Amendment) Act 1906 Small Landholders and Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1931 Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955
Status: Current legislation
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Ground Game Act 1880 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

This law gives land occupiers the inalienable right to kill rabbits and hares on the land which they occupy.