I know I m going to get my head bitten off but here goes anyway

If a Conucil Social Services Department were tipped off that an unemployed couple living on a run down estate were deliberately killing birds and animals in front of their young children, I suspect that a case conference would be called to consider where the children ought to be removed to Council care for their own protection.

I think that William and Kate are being let down by their advisors. This is the 21st century.

Merlot - shooting to eat as in country living is a totally different story. We are not all townies, you know.

As for foxhunting being illegal- it may well be, but I am sure you know that it goes on all the time- including the most disgusting aspect of all, the lovely sounding 'cubbing' at the moment.

Shooting is big business. It costs a fortune to buy a place at some of the best estates. Little George is going to be part of that just as his dad and GD are and his GGD come to that, not sure about his mum but I suspect GD's wife and GGM are as well. What on earth did you expect? That he might have some respect for animals? It's plants his GD talks to, animals are for shooting.

Sometimes it is necessary for birds or animals to be killed for good reason, but to kill them for fun and call that a sport is obscene.

Foxhunting is illegal. It was banned in 2004.

We kept chickens until I was 16. No purpose other than for eggs and the occasional Sunday lunch. I watched my Dad wring a chickens neck and then helped my Mum pluck it. It was a normal part of living on a farm. It didn’t horrify me, I wasn’t traumatised. My Dad knew my Mum couldn’t kill a chicken and neither could I. We did understand the chickens weren’t pets, they were there for food. I’ve never shot (other than at rats raiding the chicken run with an air pistol) my Dad did, usually rabbits and pigeons, all for food. It may be unacceptable to some but I view the rearing of grouse in the same way as I did the chickens. A friend runs a shoot, he cares about the birds, monitors their well-being in the same way my Dad did our chickens.

Keeping down the fox population has something to do with hunting, apparently.
I dislike that, too.

Estate management does have something to do with it, MissA

I'm sure if I had money at my fingertips, I could find a different way to have fun than shooting animals.
I don't have to be a vegetarian to say that.

I can't count how many pheasants, partridges, pigeons, hares (when they were plentiful) and rabbits we've eaten over the last forty years.

Also, pike, trout, venison, wild duck and even a roadkill muntjac!

Country living.

I've eaten pheasant and that was local so I must be as bad, although I've never shot anything except a clay pigeon.

Exactly, Callistemon

Couldn't have put it better myself

Lucca

I give up. All I know is I think it’s a horrible way to have fun.
Imagine if Meghan did it..........

What's Meghan got to do with it?

But not shot for sport

I'm wondering if a happy life ending with a quick shot is preferable to a miserable life kept indoors, overcrowded and pecked at by other birds the slaughtered at a few weeks of age.

As I do eat meat and fish I need to think about this.
Although I don't eat intensively reared meat, or try not to, I know that so many people do.

Animal activists have been allowing farm animals in Australia to suffer horrible deaths by setting them 'free' from their pastures to be savaged by dingoes.

I give up. All I know is I think it’s a horrible way to have fun.
Imagine if Meghan did it..........

I am a vegetarian so unsurprisingly I don’t agree with hunting, shooting or fishing.
However I don’t have strong views on either William and Kate or Harry and Meghan as people since I don’t know either couple personally and they don’t impact on my life in any way.

Lucca Grouse are eaten,

Both, Callistemon.

Anniebach

Chickens, ducks, pigs, cows, lambs are bred for food

? But not shot for sport

While I don't eat meat fish or eggs myself, I believe that children need to know where their burgers fish fingers and nuggets come from.

Chickens, ducks, pigs, cows, lambs are bred for food

What is far worse is migrating birds being blasted out of the sky before they can cross Europe.

Grandma70s: '' Breeding birds in order to hunt them seems particularly objectionable.''

agreed, but what is much worse, is the systematic destruction of birds of prey in those areas.

Ilovecheese

Killing animals for food is quite a different matter than killing animals for fun. Nothing to do with how much money anyone has.

The grouse gets eaten

Killing animals for food is quite a different matter than killing animals for fun. Nothing to do with how much money anyone has.