England: Prince George required to join a hunt at age 5
Animal welfare advocates believe Prince George could have «nightmares» after being taken to a grouse shoot.
Animal welfare advocates believe Prince George could have «nightmares» after being taken to a grouse shoot.
The five-year-old was driven to Queen Elizabeth's Balmoral estate in Scotland last weekend to watch his parents Kate Middleton and Prince William shoot the birds.
PETA warns of psychological harm
PETA England has taken aim at the event, describing the shooting of animals as a “bloody sport.” PETA director Elisa Allen said the harrowing experience could damage George's “psyche,” as there is a proven link between cruelty to animals in childhood and antisocial behaviour in adulthood.
Young people who have previously mistreated animals are three times more likely to commit violent offences than boys and girls who love animals.
Quite a few people today view shooting birds as nothing more than a form of sport — a violent perversion that injures and kills beautiful birds that harm no one.
“For a child to witness such casual killing, in the presence of his parents, whom he also looks up to, is potentially just as damaging to his psyche as it is to the life of the bird. To help him become a responsible, compassionate leader, his parents should be teaching him respect for all living beings.”
700’000 grouse shot annually
PETA notes that an estimated 700’000 grouse are shot in the United Kingdom every year by recreational hunters simply for fun. PETA also knows that large numbers of animals such as foxes, weasels, and squirrels are killed by recreational hunters in order to “protect” the grouse just long enough for them to be shot.
The Royals also violate the Charter of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child with their activities: that children must be protected from violence. More on Psychology and Recreational Hunting and on Animal Rights.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
