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

Shooting for fun is unacceptable in my view. Taking a child along is even more unacceptable, no matter who it is.

Lucca it’s about the way we treat animals, nothing to do with saints, I live in a very rural part of Wales, it’s a different way of
life to towns and cities.

I agree its one thing killing animals for food but quite another killing them for sport. I don't agree with the latter.

If we accept that animals and birds are sentient beings, and there is increasing evidence that this is so, it is difficult to justify killing or eating them.
Imagine a not so dystopian future, as artificial intelligence moves on apace, and robots for example, overtake humans in intelligence and skills, we may become the hunted. You may scoff at this idea but I’d advise you to take a closer look at the complex advances in AI before you do.

We shoot grouse and I will always defend the sport, there are so many aspects of this that most people do not understand.
Firstly the management of grouse moors means many wildlife species are protected,including hen harriers who will feed on young grouse.

Grouse are truly wild and are not bred, the moor is managed to provide the best possible conditions for the birds.

If numbers are low due to poor conditions the moor will be rested.
If the moors were not managed as they are many of them would be inaccessible as footpaths and trails, the moor we shoot on is full of public footpaths.

The source of income for the local economy is huge, gamekeepers, beaters, loaders and the many pubs, restaurants and hotels that benefit.
Also the staff and local food suppliers that provide the hospitality at the shooting lodges.

It is not a sport for toffs! It is a real mixed bag, yes there are plenty of “ landed gentry “ but also plenty of ordinary people like ourselves.

All birds that are shot are divided up and shared among the shooters and beaters with excess going to the catering trade.

It would not be unusual to spend a whole day on a grouse moor and not get a single bird!
They are notoriously hard to hit.
This link is interesting www.gwct.org.uk/policy/briefings/driven-grouse-shooting/conservation-on-grouse-moors/

“missfood - “*the moor is managed to provide the best possible conditions for the birds*” - yes, so this is why hares, birds of prey are killed, trees removed etc to “protect the birds“ so you can try to kill them for fun. If you just wanted to eat them you’d keep them like chickens. Yes even “protected species” are killed illegally - there’s plenty of evidence of this and no action is taken.

^I live in a very rural part of Wales, it’s a different way of
life to towns and cities.^

Food such as meat or fish arrives in supermarkets in towns and cities in plastic packages, Anniebach, having been manufactured in a factory!

If you just wanted to eat them you’d keep them like chickens. No, not necessarily.
There are many objections to the way some chickens are farmed.

BlueBelle, Your keep insisting this thread is about William and Kate but where is the evidence that Kate was there and that they took George with them?

Keep them like chickens ? Never heard of battery hens ?

Surely no one believes the chicken they buy to eat was kept on
farms where they pecked away at the ground all day and was safely
locked in coops at night to protect them from foxes

Vegansrock.

Trees are not felled to provide moorland.
Moorland is not wooded.
The moors are a wild and natural habitat that are fiercely protected.

In the 1990’s an experiment took place in a remote part of Wales.
The moor was left to nature and not managed to see if certain species increased.
Every species declined.

Or that their organic vegan food was sown, grown, nurtured and harvested by happy peasants within a 5 mile radius of their home.

I'm sorry Missfoodlove but your depiction of a Grouse Moor is not the whole picture. The shoots are subsidised by the tax payer, are destroying a variety of species, and actually pay very little into the local economy. There are lots of proposals which would provide better support for rural economies. greenecofriend.co.uk/grouse-moors-flooding/

I couldn't care less about any member of the Royal Family but they are all brought up to "country pastimes" - hunting and shooting included. I agree it's ghastly and paricularly in front of their children.

Haven't read all the messages on this thread but I can see that there are arguments from both sides but as a farmer;s daughter who still lives on a farm and who works her gundogs on several local shoots I know that I would rather eat meat that has been shot such as pigeon, rabbit, deer, pheasant, etc than pork that is 'outdoor bred' and then reared crammed into a barn with thousands of other never to see daylight again or chicken which is normally killed before it is six weeks old after life in another smelly barn.

What does that even mean ? Better than Meghan and Harry ?? None of us know or really understand the trauma these two young men went through when their parents very publicly got divorced then the loss of their much beloved mother. I don’t “judge” with of them for the choices they’ve made in their lives, it’s none of our business really (aside from funding it from our money, but in reality it costs us about 10p each every year, & I’m much more concerned with tax evasion and other wasted public funding) I wish all four of them, and their families, a happy and peaceful future. I too cannot condone blood sports, absolutely no need ! One can shoot without live animals.

DaisyL Despite not liking killing for fun, I completely see your point here and if all hunts ended in food being consumed I see the point. I do even understand the damage foxes do to livestock, but big hints and shoots merely for fun are somewhat different

Hunting is banned

Hunting is banned
Perhaps some posters didn't realise that.

Callistemon

^Hunting is banned^
Perhaps some posters didn't realise that.

I can't be bothered to go back through the thread and count how many times I've explained that hunting and shooting are two completely different activities and that hunting with dogs was banned in 2005.

I completely agree Bluebelle. One rule for them and all that. I remember years ago, an article about our local zoo. The owner had taken his tiny grandson, about 2 I think, into the tiger cage, to make some sort of point? To show off? I don’t know what it was. I do know, that if it had been anyone else, other than this rich business man, Social Services would have removed that child. It was so dangerous, and a completely unloving thing for a grandfather to do.

DiscoDancer1975

I completely agree Bluebelle. One rule for them and all that. I remember years ago, an article about our local zoo. The owner had taken his tiny grandson, about 2 I think, into the tiger cage, to make some sort of point? To show off? I don’t know what it was. I do know, that if it had been anyone else, other than this rich business man, Social Services would have removed that child. It was so dangerous, and a completely unloving thing for a grandfather to do.

What the heck has this got to do with the thread?

for some bizarre reason it has always been the number one sport for kings. The queens father George 6th apparently loved shooting more than anything as did his father and so on back...not sure about Victoria? The Middletons were apparently introduced to stag hunting. It is their rite of passage into the nobility. It is awful barbaric and the more they are shamed the better. It is an area in which they are entirely insensitive as it clashes so much with their inherited culture. I cannot imagine enjoying killing a living thing. I think the fuss over George is because it was felt as indoctrination - the same way first participation in a 'successful' hunt the child is smeared with blood.

The upper classes do still indulge in this sort of thing i would imagine, so its not up to 'what we think' is it? They wouldn't just stop doing it because we say so, their families have been doing this for centuries.I would not do it, but im not one of the 'posh set'- i don't think it would be good to show a child though, and really, i can't see that william&kate, as caring parents, would do that?So I'm not sure if that is true,or just more propaganda made up by the press maybe?

Merlotgran Probably nothing, I didn’t trawl all through the pages, so don’t know how the conversation has progressed. I always try to respond as if it’s just me and the OP. She talked about the privileged doing what they like in front of children, and it reminded me of this story. By the looks of the last few posts, including yours, it appears the thread probably digressed before I got to it. You are completely free to disregard anything you don’t deem worthy!!

Live and let live. I loathe Megan, and think Harry very weak. We have more to worry about than William having time out!

If that is what he enjoys doing, so what? Nothing wrong with Country Sports, let them get on with it.