Prince William goes 'deer culling' in Balmoral

[vera99]

What's wrong with these people? I can maybe understand the need for occasional culling (though it is most often for the human agency not a concern for the animal) but to go out and enjoy stalking these magnificent creatures get them in the sights of your guns and kill them - that's just sick.

PS. King Charles was a big fan of fox hunting

AIBU? - Yes this is actual nature conservation activity and William is showing concern and leadership in participating in the shooting.

YANBU? - No this is a sick perverted hobby of the super-rich who glory in the pleasure killing of defenceless animals.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11300807/Prince-Wales-visits-Balmoral-goes-deer-stalking-Scotland-trip-Queens-funeral.html

"Deer stalking is the act of culling ageing stags that would otherwise die in the winter, with William shooting his first when he was 14 years old, something that is said to have left him delighted at the time.
The activity, which has been a shared passion among generations of the Royal Family, was encouraged by William's father King Charles III, while Princess Diana used to jokingly call him 'my killer Wales'.
William is not thought to have been joined in Scotland by his wife Catherine, who is herself a keen markswoman, and their children. A spokesman for Kensington Palace declined to comment."

An ethical viewpoint

Culling deer (as long as it's done professionally, AND at the moment there's no suggestion that any of the royal family hunters are not acting professionally) is no more cruel and repulsive than cows, pigs and chicken being killed to be eaten at an abattoir.

Culling deer is miles better on animal welfare standards than even the best abbatoir. It's a quick death of an animal in its own habitat, no travelling, no trauma.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the case - optics.

www.aol.co.uk/2014/02/08/prince-william-hunting-trip-spain-one-day-before-wildlife-campaign

This is a shocking article about what they get up to on huge private estates in Spain.

Princes William and Harry have previously taken part in boar hunts in Cordoba as a guest of the late Duke of Westminster.
The brothers flew out in 2014 to Finca La Garganta, one of the largest and most exclusive hunting estates in western Europe.
It is believed the animals on the shoot were not fenced in on the 37,000-hectare property which is teeming with wildlife including wild boar and stag.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10484607/Four-fifty-deer-boar-slaughtered-fenced-enclosure-customers-Spanish-hunt.html

My brother lives in Girona, his Spanish MIL lives in Tossa and there has been a huge increase in the amount of wild boar. His retired MIL has seen them frequently on her walks in the hills outside the town.

spanishnewstoday.com/10_year_old-girl-injured-by-wild-boar-on-spanish-beach_1809515-a.html

I used to love watching the wild boar munching on fallen apples in our garden in France. I really disliked the swaggering, obnoxious men that came to hunt them. Like killing those animals when you have a gun and dogs is any kind of sport at all. That's not a sport when the odds are all in your favour. Those guys thought it made them impressive studs who could drive stupidly around the village and harass the women. Plus, you can't really enjoy walking in the mountains with their guns going off, in case you get shot. The cruelty of the slaughter in Spain is nauseating, although they have always been culturally cruel to animals. On another note, your fox is a beauty OP, just had to say.

Many thanks - but she's not mine she is her own agent and a beautiful creature who lives amongst but beautifully apart from us. The haters are going to hate whatever but there are about 10% of us urbanites who love and cherish them - underground if needs be and wildlife charities like the Fox Project and many others who help us to understand and help these beautiful creatures.

To those that think differently, I do hope you don't rear your children on all those anthropomorphic kiddie cartoons that celebrate their loveliness you're only poisoning their little minds with errant nonsense. Bambi begone ! Probably better to catch them early with hunting videos and teaching them about human supremacy over the animal kingdom.

foxproject.org.uk/

@vera99

i’m a city dweller transported to the country, my kids have inherited my fancy ideas like naming animals 🤣 A neighbour breeds, horses and sometimes buts them in the fields next to our house, we asked their names and his son replied ‘whatever you want’

I’ve friends here who farm, and they want what’s best for their animals, they don’t count lambs for a few days as they foxes carry the new horns off. They’ve tried playing m

Once you've named them you're off with the fairies. My widowed neighbour Jackie has found great comfort in the last 2 years in her overgrown garden watching the foxes play. The first year had 5 cubs and then they all dispersed in the autumn save for a female who became Ajax. She had 4 cubs I think with her mangey father who died early (probably incest which is rare and she never liked him though her cubs did) and she brought them all up on her own and lost one in the first weeks. Her 2 sons went off into the world a few months back leaving her daughter (Apple) behind. Fox parents are very caring until they reach adolescence and then when they are ready tell them to piss off and find their own way in life. Daughters, however, may stay near their mum and help with cub rearing and if they have mated with a keeper then the father will stick around and help out too. Remarkable creatures in so many respects. Dog body with a cat brain made paranoid over millennia by being a threat to our precious food supplies and not being a pack animal very difficult to domesticate.

I'm obviously beyond help and don't care.

I find that people in the country find it very hard to accept that people in the cities are entitled to have moral positions that show greater civility than country dwellers.

Not when the city people have no clue what they are actually having 'moral positions' about! As I said in my earlier post, many of them are living in fantasyland.

He's not a professional deer stalker, no.

Why does someone have to be a 'professional deer stalker'? I don't live in the UK, and a lot of ordinary people hunt here - often the deer are in the mountains and anyone with a hunting permit can shoot them. They are hardly 'professional' but they do know what they are doing. I have friends who have hunted deer, perfectly ordinary people with ordinary jobs.

This.

The UK is different. You can't just get a license and go hunting as a non landowner.

Prince William's involvement (and other royals etc.) is a big part of what perpetuates shoooting as a commercial industry here. Estates sell shooting rights to tourists (who may or may not be good shots) and make a lot of money from it. This money incentivises bad practice and encourages estates to maintain an overpopulation of deer.

The tourists only want to participate because of the aristocratic connection. No one pays big money to shoot rabbits or squirrels, do they?

If you remove the commercial aspect and the aristocratic cachet, I believe herds would be culled in a more sensible and professional way (targeting hinds, for example, and aiming for lower populations).

That's why Prince William's involvement is a bad thing - his involvement (and those like him) gives the sport its cachet and makes it profitable, which gives rise to bad practice.

Don't forget those big money tourists bring a lot of money to the Highlands and they are always accompanied by a professional so they can point out what to take a shot at and they can mop up any animals which the amateur has missed.

It's not just a case of taking a gun and having pot shots at anything which moves.

Virgin Experiences should add this to its portfolio. 😡

www.glencarronestate.co.uk/things-to-do

Available from July 1st to October 20th, stag stalking on the Glencarron Estate costs £600 per stag; this price includes your own personal stalker, rifle and ammunition and VAT. The venison will remain the property of the estate but if you would like to take the antlers home as a way of remembering the experience then the stalker can cut and clean them for just £30. It may be possible to shoot more than one stag in a day, therefore two guns may go out together and be accompanied by one stalker, and two others can also join the party. Also, in October it can be possible to have a second group on the hills stag stalking.
Hind stalking is available from October 21st to February 15th. The cost is £220 per day for one gun and £300 for two guns. Two other people can also be part of the group. Included in the price is your own stalker, guns and ammunition. A second stalker can also be available for two parties stalking in the hills.

Prior to your adventures in the hills, the stalker will check you can hit a six inch circle at approximately 100 yards. It will also be up to the stalker to choose which stag to kill.

Oh well! If they bring money then it is fine to shoot animals for fun!! Money magically makes everything okay.

THIS!!
Professional culling is VERY different from commercial stag hunting. And commercial stag hunting leads directly to over population practices such as feeding wild deer during the winter to keep numbers up.

It's noticeable how much more expensive the stag hunting is

The horns and the trophy - ya got to kill an alpha male animal. Looks like men actually get the 'horn' whilst doing it.

www.feelguide.com/2016/11/07/hunting-linked-to-psychosexual-inadequacy-the-5-phases-of-a-hunters-life-of-sexual-frustration/

In his book, What Is Sport: A Controversial Essay About Why Humans Play Sports, social psychologist Rob Alpha explains how researchers with the Genetic Economic Analytics Group found the neurophysiological link between sex and a man’s desire to hunt. It turns out the same regions of the brain that are activated in the sex drive and orgasm are also activated by the compulsion to hunt and harvest animals. Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger (1893-1990), who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1981, and is the namesake of the Menninger School of Psychiatry, wrote extensively about the Erotic Sadistic Motivation Theory of sport hunting. “Sadism may take a socially acceptable form [such as deer hunting and deer stalking] and other varieties of so-called ‘sport,'” he writes. “These all represent the destructive and cruel energies of man directed toward more helpless creatures.”

antelopevalley · Yesterday 14:13
MrsSkylerWhite · Yesterday 13:19
Old and weak deer must be culled for the herd to survive. They do it every year in Richmond Park. I believe the meat goes to local butchers.
Professional culling is fine. In spite of the accusations by some that we all just want to save cuddly animals, many of us live in rural areas and are well-versed with the realities of rural life.
That also means we can spot the bullshit that equates professional culling with the aristocracy and rich people stalking and killing deer - mainly stags - as sport“

Fair enough. I’m a townie, so happy to defer to greater knowledge.