And that's not looking at the industrial scale at which animals are mutilated for food. Throwing a few lemmings over a cliff is insignificant.
Farmers here absolutely kill dangerous and nuisance animals, but it's because they are dangerous and/or pests. They also commonly hunt, both for resources and for sport. But it's definitely not acceptable to drown kittens. Anyone doing that here would be rightfully treated as a monster, regardless how rural your upbringing.
Story from Georgia: I was a contractor working in a creepy old rural courthouse overnight. In the early hours of the morning, I kept seeing shadows in my periphery and thought I was hallucinating. Turned out to be a baby bat trapped in the room.
I spent the next few hours chasing it around trying to trap it with a wastebin. Eventually succeeded, called my boss and they called Animal Control. They were too busy to come out but said they'd "send someone." I stuck around and worked a double so nobody accidentally released it again; the day staff were all older ladies and it would have been pandemonium.
6 hours later, two facility maintenance workers from the city show up. I show them where it is, they say thanks and get in position around it. They proceeded to kick the can over and stomp it to death.
(That being my experience with "Animal Control" to date, I later caught a lost dog in rural California. This time, I just called the police, but they referred me to the Humane Society. Here we go again...except they showed up within an hour and collected him without incident.)
Throwing them off cliff for the purpose of entertainment? Huge judgement. And kids would get seriously spanked if they did that.