When the former royal prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, wanted to impress his billionaire paedophile friend, Jeffrey Epstein, what did he do? Invited him to the royal shooting estate at Balmoral, of course. A shallow attempt to influence by showing off status, wealth and ownership of vast tracts of land….and all kept purely for the pursuit of ‘pleasure’.
Not hard to see how that mindset was shared by both the sick individuals concerned. It’s what this country’s elite have always traded on – a quintessential Britishness – tweeds, shotguns and bloodlust.
The modern grouse and pheasant shooting industry has grown on the back of this fraud of culture and status, fuelled by a callous disregard for animals and the environment. It has no place in our society today. Yet the slaughter continues, legitimised by the patronage of the royal family, aristocracy and billionaires. These families and special buddies are as tight knit as any drug cartel with some politicians either collusive or too frightened to lose the countryside vote for any meaningful intervention.
Shocklach Hall shoot is located a few metres from the Welsh border and is just one of many examples of the year round cruelty and barbarism that underpins country sports. It’s owned by Lady Tamara Van Cutsem, sister of the current (7th) Duke of Westminster, in a family worth £10.5 billion. The wedding of Tamara Grosvenor and Edward Van Cutsem in 2004 was attended by Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip and all the royal princes. Even though around 50 million pheasants are reared or imported every year in the UK, instructions to gamekeepers are abundantly clear: maximise the number of gamebirds on every estate. This is the binary world of shooting estates where there are just two categories of birds and animals: vermin or game and nothing else. Everything is killed sooner or later. There’s a handful of shoot days for the pleasure of the royals, dukes & associated bootlickers with the rest of the year being just plain slaughter of everything else.
If you ever have a chance to visit you’ll find piles of rotting animals in stink pits – used to attract predators like foxes, to be killed to protect the huge concentrations of birds. Often ringed with snares to catch the poor animals in the most gruesome ways prior to their demise at the hand of the gamekeeper, the looming ban on snares will just mean an increase in night shooting of those attracted to the pits instead.
The HSA has waged a successful campaign across the grouse moors of the north on the ‘Glorious 12th’ season opening for many years and local sab groups will always pack up a shoot if the opportunity arises but bloodsports – and shoots in particular – continue because the pastime is seen as part of the upper class lifestyle demonstrating prestige and influence Edward van Cutsem is best buddy of the royals and the duchy has all that money after all.
The van Cutsem family own Hilborough Estate in Norfolk which has been a favourite shoot for the royal family, presumably when the royals have killed every pheasant at Sandringham. King Charles is godfather to Edward van Cutsem and was a close friend of Edward’s father, Hugh van Cutsem. William van Cutsem (brother of Edward) is godfather to Prince George. In 2022, the Hunt Investigation Team exposed the unlawful trapping of a protected Goshawk where the raptor was disappeared by a masked man. All wildlife crime charges were mysteriously dropped and subsequently an estate gamekeeper, Dominic Green, only pleaded guilty to the possession of an offensive weapon – see more here.
In a very common example of the elite and the shooting industry blurring the lines between game bird slaughter and conservation, van Cutsem’s Hilborough Estate won the Grey Partridge Award a top conservation prize at the Royal Norfolk Show, presented to the head gamekeeper.
The Duchy of Lancaster is often described as King Charles’ private income where payment of tax is voluntary – a nice deal for an entity worth some £678 million, including two grouse shooting estates. One being Goathland in the North York Moors National Park – where in a remarkably similar story to that of Hilborough above, a goshawk was unlawfully trapped and disappeared in 2020 as reported by Raptor Persecution UK here.
BH Sporting were the managing agents and provided a handy level of deniability for anyone too closely associated with the royals. But even the agents didn’t need to bear any responsibility because three gamekeepers were suspended with the clear implication these individuals were rogue operators acting without agent or landowner permission. One resigned but the others retained their jobs. Business as usual.
BH Sporting also manage 130,000 acres of grouse moors across Scotland and northern England including another royal grouse moor at Whitewell in the Forest of Bowland and the Duke of Rutland’s Moscar Estate. Any normal person might think such a close association with the trapping of protected birds and mammals would result in the blacklisting of BH Sporting? How wrong could you be – they are welcomed with open arms by grouse moor landowners. That’s because the trapping and killing of protected species is routine on almost every grouse moor.
Just to be clear goshawks are rare and protected birds yet that is absolutely no safeguard for them, or any others such as hen harriers, on or near gamebird shooting estates.
The Duke’s Abbeystead estate is close to the royal’s Whitewell grouse moor and holds the record for the most grouse shot in a day: 2,929 red grouse, achieved on August 12, 1915. The toffs were busy killing while the workers were dying in the trenches.
The Abbeystead website states:
“We provide a mosaic of habitats for feeding, breeding and cover for the benefit of grouse and other moorland birds. The estate is situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and more than two thirds are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Protection Area (SPA) for its rare habitat and the flora and fauna it supports.
Our conservation and sporting activities go hand in hand, promoting sustainable practices which enhance biodiversity and protect the environment. Shooting at Abbeystead is run for private use and non-commercial gain. ”
And what about those conservation claims? Tarnbrook Fell SSSI unit 050 is classed as Unfavourable Declining – the worst possible categorization. This is because the population of Lesser Black Backed Gulls, once thriving on these moors at 20,000 pairs was down to 1000 with widespread signs of culling and disturbance. This illegal culling went on for years. So why didn’t Natural England prosecute? NE stated clearly Abbeystead had broken the law but just sent a letter – see Mark Avery’s blog here.
When David Cameron became Prime Minister he insisted he hadn’t been shooting for years, though as soon as he left office he started again very publicly. As well as austerity cuts to public services, his legacy was to increase payments for grouse moor owners, sack most of conservation watchdog Natural England’s staff and made sure they never prosecuted anybody.
Despite obvious lawbreaking there isn’t a single clear prosecution for any breach of conservation law. Killing a goshawk at Goathland – a gamekeeper resigns. Killing a goshawk at Hilborough – charges dropped and a gamekeeper just has an offensive weapon so nothing to do with protected species. Snaring badgers at Moscar – no offence occurred. Doing away with 20,000 pairs of protected amber listed gulls – nothing to see here. Police, CPS and statutory enforcement bodies all looking the other way. How did that happen? Look no further than the rights and privileges enjoyed for centuries by the upper echelons of british society and still thriving for the royals, landed gentry and the nouveau riche of today – and backed by staggering sums of money beyond our comprehension.
The HSA’s shooting officer said:
“Whilst the governments recent announcement of the proposed ban on snares as a component of the Animal Welfare Strategy for England is very welcome, it will only come as an inconvenience to the shooting estates and their wealthy owners. This abhorrence maintained by the upper classes and pursued in an effort to demonstrate their importance to a desperately small peer group and their ghoulish hangers on – plus the destruction it wreaks on the hapless quarry, the surrounding wildlife and our precious eco-systems – is sickening on every level.
The HSA will continue to do everything we can to bring it to an end and we look forward to the day when it joins other bloodsports as only a relic of a cruel and ignorant past.”
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