Ibn Umar passed by some young men of Quraysh who had set up a bird as a target and were shooting at it, having agreed to give the owner of the bird every arrow of theirs that missed. When they saw Ibn Umar, they scattered.Ibn Umar said, "Who did this? May Allah curse whoever did this. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ cursed anyone who takes a living creature as a target."
و حدثني زهير بن حرب حدثنا هشيم أخبرنا أبو بشر
مر ابن عمر بفتيان من قريش قد نصبوا طيرا وهم يرمونه وقد جعلوا لصاحب الطير كل خاطئة من نبلهم فلما رأوا ابن عمر تفرقوا فقال ابن عمر من فعل هذا لعن الله من فعل هذا إن رسول الله ﷺ لعن من اتخذ شيئا فيه الروح غرضا
Both of them (Bukhari and Muslim) reported the hadith of Abu Bishr, from Saeed bin Jubayr, from Ibn Umar, "He cursed whoever took a living creature as a target." This is the sahih version.If someone says that Adi bin Thabit contradicted him, narrating from Saeed bin Jubayr from Ibn Abbas, the response is that no one followed Adi in his version. Rather, Nahhal bin Amr and Saeed bin Amr followed Abu Bishr, both narrating from Saeed bin Jubayr from Ibn Umar. So the ruling goes to them over Adi, and the hadith of Adi is a mistake. And Allah knows best.
Al-Hafiz, may Allah have mercy on him, said in the introduction to Fath al-Bari, page 337, printed edition, after mentioning Daraqutni's statement, "I say, Bukhari mentioned the hadith of Adi in a suspended form, and in my view it is a different hadith from the hadith of Abu Bishr, due to the difference between the two texts in both wording and meaning." End of quote.
I say their wordings are close to one another, and their meanings are close to one another, and likewise their causes are close, and the transmission of hadith by narrators according to meaning rather than exact wording is well known from their statements and from their hadiths.The hadith of Ibn Abbas, as found in Muslim, states, "Do not take anything that has a soul as a target." The hadith of Ibn Umar states that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, cursed whoever takes anything that has a soul as a target. Bukhari also has, from the hadith of Ibn Umar, a prohibition against confining an animal or anything else to be killed for target practice, and likewise Abu Awana has it in volume 5, page 197.So it appears that preference should be given to the hadith of Abu Bishr, who is Jafar bin Iyas, and Minhal bin Amr, both of whom transmit it from Saeed bin Jubayr, and Muhammad bin Abu Amrah follows them in narrating it, as in Tarikh al-Kabir of Bukhari, volume 1, page 206. It later became known that he is a person whose identity is unverified, as in Jarh wa Tadil of Ibn Abu Hatim, volume 8, page 54, where no narrator from him is mentioned other than Maan bin Rifa, and no one has affirmed his reliability. Dawud bin Abu Qasaf also follows them in this narration, as found in Tabarani's Al-Saghir, volume 1, page 14.