How can Prince William campaign against rhino poaching when he happily kills other animals for sport?

[Hammy02]

I genuinely can't get my head around this. Am I missing something?

My opinion of meat eating is irrelevant to William and hunting and will take the matter off-topic. (Though admittedly, so's my interest in scorpions in London!).

Thanks Mrsjay, I'm going to check out the programme, it sounds fascinating.

was On Bbc2 so will be on Iplayer, was natural world

There is a world of difference between poaching an endangered species for one body part and shooting animals bred for the purpose to eat, just in the name of biodiversity alone.

Deer are shot on the farm or in the wild, because even domestic ones are stressed terribly if you try to round them up on to lorries.

Wild boar haven't lived in the UK for a long time. The ones we now have are escapes.

We no longer have enough forests to support large wild boar or deer populations and both taste nice.

Pheasants are a menace, I wish people didn't breed them, but their woods and the Grouse moors are valuable habitat that would be lost if it didn't provide income.

I feel exhausted just at the thought of feeling so morally superior to the majority of the people on this planet that I'd consider the meat eaters all cunts (or perhaps just those who kill their own food are the cunts and the rest are...shits?). I think I'd need a lie down.

Clearly eating rabbits is wrong

I disagree, Graham, but we can just add that to the list of things we disagree on.

Right so the issue as you see it is that if you hunt for sport/food and are careful about what/when you hunt to ensure that populations are not drastically reduced/endangered. You also practice your skill to the extent that death comes quickly to the animal (much quicker and less stressful than even an abertoir can't spell ) then you a cunt.

Also if you support the above you have no right to comment or object to the persecution of endangered animals?

Bizare opinion.

Like suggesting that if you go swimming with your kids at the weekend you shouldn't have an opinion on kids who are forced to swim for 8 hours a day every day and are often beaten and never actually get to enter any competitions anyway.

I often wonder just what would happen if animal populations were not controlled.

There are too many elephants in the Kruger Park so they are regularly culled. The very thought makes my heart bleed. But if it were not done then all the elephants would suffer.

Life is cruel. I wish it weren't.

But taste so good starball

Ok so stalking an animal (which causes it no stress whatsoever) then shooting it, killing it instantly and eating it for supper makes you a cunt, however eating meat from a supermarket where the animal has been reared unnaturally in often fairly appalling conditions, transported to an abbatoir in a packed lorry, terrified and then killed and eaten is somehow ok? Whoever made that comment needs to get out from up their own arse and live in the real world, maybe go visit a few working farms if they don't believe the harsh reality of farming today.

Maybe the fact that he is known to hunt will actually help, as the people doing the poaching would be more likely to respect his opinion than that of someone who was vehemently opposed to the killing of all animals. I can see that a poacher would dismiss the opinion of someone who felt that killing a chicken or a mouse was the same as killing an elephant.
Anyway it has brought a great deal of attention to the issue in any case which was surely the point.

You are missing:

a) the difference between legal hunting and poaching and
b) the difference between endangered and not endangered.

I eat meat (but as ethically sourced as possible) and I drink milk, wear leather shoes etc but do not support hunting. I don't like to see sportsmen taking part in competitions when they are quite often shit shots and injure rather than kill the animal.

I understand and support the culling of animals, but only when done by experts/marksmen. We have a conservation officer where I work now who is a Vegan, and stanch animal rights supporter, but regularly has to cull deer etc. He is also the one that is called if an animal is injured and needs putting out of its misery (like when MuttDog chased a pheasant that took a header into a tree - he had to show me what to do to dispatch the bird humanely in case it happened again). I certainly don't think he is a cunt.

Fox hunters / big game and sport shooters / rhino poachers - cunts.

I think they have to shoot deer in Scotland, don't they? I'm quite happy to eat venison under those circumstances... and pheasant.

He can't.

Agree with all the other posters who point out that rhinos are endangered and are being poached for their horns, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. Killing them for this reason is illegal.

Prince William (as far as I'm aware) shoots pheasant and other game birds and deer, both of which are perfectly legal.

It's a whole other debate as to whether you agree with that and, in my opinion, boils down to whether you think animals should be killed by humans at all.

I would personally much prefer to eat a pheasant that has had a 'happy' life outdoors eating natural food and is then shot rather than some poor beast that is reared indoors or with very little room to roam about, fed on compound feed full of growth-promoting additives and is then transported many miles to a slaughterhouse before being stunned and killed on a 'production line'.

Can you really not see the difference between killing an endangered species and shooting pheasants which are then eaten?

I can see the difference between killing an endangered species for sport and killing something you intend to eat.

I actually don't see much difference between killing a rhino and killing a pheasant if you are doing it for sport. And a significant number of the pheasants shot for sport are not eaten, by the way.

We're running out of rhinos. Not running out of pheasants or deer (especially since the hunt ban) or any other beastie that tends to be killed the be-tweeded types in this country.

We have pheasant hunts locally and I can honestly say all the pheasants get eaten. They are doled out to the families that go along to help out with the beating.

"I actually don't see much difference between killing a rhino and killing a pheasant if you are doing it for sport"

Really? You can't see the difference between killing an endangered animal and something of which there are a virtually infinite supply of?

Javan Rhino - population is less than 60 individuals. Most of these rhinos are the Indonesian Javan Rhino subspecies. The Vietnamese Javan Rhino subspecies consists of 5 individual animals and may not recover. The Indian Javan Rhino is extinct.
Sumatran Rhino - population less than 275 individuals, with poaching on the rise
Black Rhino - population 3,725. West African Rhino species declared extinct in 2006. From 1980 until 2006, 14,000 were slaughtered by poachers.
Indian Rhino - population approximately 2,400, a conservation success story - but poaching is on the rise due to regional political instability
White Rhino: Northern White Rhino - it was reported on June 17, 2008 that the last 4 individuals were killed by poachers. Southern White Rhino - 14,000 surviving, due to conservation efforts

"Also interesting that he can see that there is no scientific basis for the medicinal use of rhino horn, even though he was presumably brought up with his father's views on alternative medicine (homeopathy etc - but perhaps since that is Western unscientific medicine it is OK)."

Thats a slightly bizarre statement to make exexpat! What relevance does what William believes about powdered Rhino horn have to do with what his father believes about homeopathy

I'm sure my father (who raised me) has many many views that I don;t agree with - I'm not compelled to agree with them because they were a part of my childhood - religion is a good example.

If William has ever given a public statement on his support for homeopathy then your point makes sense. Otherwise not.

Deer have no natural predators left apart from man so need to be culled in order to protect from overcrowding and stress. I don;t suppose the deer much care whether they're shot by someone enjoying it or someone whose job it is.

Mind you introducing wolves into Richmond park instead would spice up walking the dog no end...

He is not hunting endangered species so nothing wrong in what he is doing at all.