Over the weekend, Pippa Middleton jetted off to Scotland for a relaxing country weekend at a the Drum Estate near Edinburgh. She and a group of friends went pheasant-shooting, and someone posted a photo of Pippa and her friends smiling happily in front of more than four dozen dead bird carcasses. That’s Pippa, third from the left (your left). The photo was posted on Instagram a day or two ago, and the reaction has been… well…
On Twitter and Instagram, the animal-rights people are beyond furious. There’s a lot of stuff being thrown around like “posing in front of 50 dead carcasses” and “stupid” and “the murder of innocent beings as a leisure activity” and “shameful”. You get the idea. Here’s what I never really understand about bird-hunting in particular… why the glory photos? Are you really that proud of yourself for killing… birds? I mean, I sort of understand it when it’s a buck or when a fisherman is holding up some prize fish. I “get” that. But what’s the point of standing in front of dead birds and posing for a smiley photo?
So, yeah, it looks bad. And it will continue to look bad because Pippa LOVES blood sport. She’s already gone boar-hunting and deer-hunting this year too. Ugh. I just don’t get it. I wasn’t raised this way. My dad was the kind of person who nursed wild animals back to health, which is how I had a pet squirrel for a time. So, obviously, I’m the wrong person to talk to.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.
Uh What.
5 bucks says Pippa writes her next “sporting” article for Vanity Fair or the Telegraph about this crap.
Pippa Tip: When attending a hunting party, one must be sure to point the barrel of the gun away from one’s face whilst pulling the trigger.
PIPPA TIP ROAR!!!!
OMG best Pippa tip ever !!!
Most of the upper class does it. Pipster is the only one stupid enough to release pictures on the Internet. Guess the ladies are proud of their shooting skills.
What I find most disturbing is that they are all laughing in front of the dead birds. Like they just went shopping or something.
Plus one activist said they raise pheasants in Scotland just to shoot them then. The pheasants are not even trained to behave like wild pheasants and therefore an easy target. How stupid is it to pose in front of them when they are probably all pretty bad hunters? Disgusting hobby.
At least they are honest and accountable to their slaughter.
In the USA we are in total denial of how hideous and cruel our industrial food system is. Ugh.
She’s smiling because she’s a total sociopath.
“The pheasants are not trained to act like wild pheasants”… For some reason that statement stuns me.
Deedles, go, look it up on the internet. I don’t know the exact words of the activist, but the pheasants are not used to flee. They don’t have a real chance, that’s what I meant.
If you’re vegetarian, then I completely respect your perspective. If you’re not… these pheasants are eaten. They live a wonderful life, with supplementary feeding, in the wilderness with natural predators controlled by gamekeepers. They aren’t shipped miles to horrifically cruel industrial abbattoirs where they’re often tormented before a terrifying and very clearly imminent death, after a life in a concentration camp, which is the reality of most animals bred for industrial meat production.
We eat a lot of game bred and killed like these pheasants. I prefer that to supermarket produce. I know the animals had great lives and relatively swift deaths on their own turf. I mean, how “bred to flee” do you imagine broiler chickens or pigs or beef cattle are?
Most of the “upper class” does not do this. Maybe in the UK, but not the world.
And yes, i agree, She’s a pig and so is every other member in her family.
i have no problem with this if that group of idiot girls eat them later. Pheasant hunting is really no big deal and yes, they raise them on farms and scare them up to the sky and then they are shot, and there is a whole ceremony around this with staff and dogs etc. and usually they are eaten. so who cares. its hunting, and they arent endangered, and anyone on here who eats chicken ought not to be throwing stones. at least they are getting close to their food source.
if they dont eat them or donate them to a group who will hand out the meat, then they are silly frivolous and wasteful.
@bros: Agree. I’ve been on pheasant shoots and the birds are actually not easy to bag despite how big they are. That said, I shot some pheasants so I could eat them and they were delicious. Could probably have just picked some pheasant breasts up at the butcher. On organized shoots such as these, whatever is not eaten by the shooters is provided to food banks.
@bros, I totally agree too. I grew up around hunters here in Texas and have even been hunting some myself. My dad goes pheasant hunting every year in Italy, and all the birds that he shoots are given to the people of the little village where he hunts. Every bird is eaten. If you eat what you kill, and if what you kill doesn’t suffer and is not endangered, then I don’t see the big deal. Let’s put it this way–I’ll eat the dove and pheasant that my dad and brother bring home, but I won’t eat chicken from the supermarket.
Rather than the aristocratic British pursuit that it once was, today it is dominated by corporate charabancs. Box at a soccer or rugby game? Why not go the whole hog and shoot birds instead?
Pippa was shooting at a private estate belonging to a friend. Pretty sure they were not shooting battery-cage-raised birds and then burning the carcasses.
Any chance they eat them? Or are they all full of bird shot? Do they do ANYTHING with the dead birds? Make partridge down pillows?
They are sold to the local game dealer who resells to restaurants or individuals. Every one gets eaten . That’s how the estate supports the staff. This a business just like chicken farming. Each shooter takes a brace (two) home for the pot if they commit to eat them. All the rest go to the dealer.
http://www.ocado.com search for “game”. Partridge, pheasant, venison, grouse. That’s the UK’s main delivery supermarket, and all sorts of people use it, from Goop downwards.
Game is eaten. It’s a high welfare product, and the fact it’s also a sport and people spend a fortune on it actually subsidises a life for the animal. It costs less to eat these game birds than it does an organic chicken, because most of the production costs are met by the sporting interests, not the end consumer.
The lass is trying to prove she is a real aristocrat and ready for her title.
Funny, I read that as ‘the real antichrist’.
^This, my thoughts exactly.
the second from last photo, very flattering! tho she looks a bit like demi moore
I know, right? Whoever took that photograph needs to go pro, if they’re not already.
I thought the same thing. It could almost be a movie still with the lighting and composition. Not that she should start appearing in any movies.
I agree! I think it’s a flattering picture of her. She also looks quite a bit like Kate in the picture on the top.
I find it funny when meat eaters get in uproars about hunting (not saying that’s you!). That being said, I am a leather wearing vegetarian so I guess I have no room to talk!!
Unless you chose leather when other equally acceptable options were around, then it really isn’t the same. Leather is a by-product; no animals I know are killed for their leather (I am not talking about snakes, crocodiles etc., of course). But most of all, the CHOICE we have is very reduced compared to, say, eating choices.
So, it’s really not the same.
That’s right, it’s not the same. Leather is almost always a more expensive option for clothing, whereas meat is almost always a less expensive option for calories.
Emily, I was thinking mostly of shoes. There, the range of choice really is much reduced. I try to buy non-leather shoes whenever I can, but most good shoes have at least one part (usually the sole) made of keather.
Emily, meat is a less expensive option than what? Vegetables and fruit? Not where I live and I’m in Texas so beef is pretty inexpensive here.
To me, hunting is okay as long as you EAT what you kill and don’t kill more than you could possibly eat. Killing for fun is senseless.
This reminds me of a story that is going around on CBC News the past few days. An albino moose in Nova Scotia was killed by a group of hunters, basically so they could show off their “prize”. The aboriginal communities there (and non-aboriginals as well) are extremely upset over this. To them, an albino moose is sacred and hunters in the area have left the moose alone for years. And then along comes a group of idiots, who instead of seeing a white moose and thinking “holy crap, this creature is rare, we better not kill it” do the exact opposite and post pictures of the poor dead animal online. Stuff like that just pisses me off.
Littlestar
There are all too many stories like that. Stories of how animals are even welcome into towns as mascots of a sort and others kill them just because they can.
Shoot animals for food. Not for a fun thing to do on the weekend.
How sad and horrible! These idiots are going to reap some bad karma.
Exactly! I remember how many people were mad at Mark Zuckerberg for only eating the animals he kills himself- he’s actually eating very little meat because of this and knows where it comes from and how it dies but somehow it’s horrible that he kills animals instead of letting terrible slaughterhouses kill them for him. (signed, a leather wearing vegetarian)
I mean, I don’t really understanding going on hunts but at least the people going on them understand where their meat comes from and how it died and are not as disconnected from it as those people who buy it in the supermarket but are freaked out about everything that reminds them that they are in fact eating a dead animal.
Why is this freakin’ royal wannabe even in the news? These privileged no bodys posing with all these dead carcasses!! This is unconscionable!!
True game hunters are very responsible people and very involved in conservation efforts. Shooting game to eat is a lot more humane than what goes on in many meat processing plants.
Where do you think your meat comes from? I’d rather see this than factory farming.
ita
people who eat animals and wear leather are being hypocritical if they complain about the photos
that being said, i think enjoying killing something as a hobby is freaky and creepy and i could never associate with a hunter
My uncle is a hunter, and they are allowed to hunt only a few months per year. They spend most of the time taking care of the animals, providing food, shelter, etc.
I could never do it, though.
I’m a carnivore & have no problem with hunters who hunt for food. It’s just the glorification of unnecessary death that the photo represents-a group of very wealthy young women who probably barely eat anything at all (yeah, I’m sure they were planning to cook & eat all 50 pheasants that weekend). Probably a more tasteful option would have been to take a picture at the soup kitchen in the chow line serving up the dead birds as the main course. If I had to kill my own food to eat, I would. But I damn well wouldn’t take pictures of me laughing over a carcass and post it to Instagram.
Through my partner who grew up in a family that hunted to feed five children in years that the farm didn’t produce, I’ve made my peace with the concept of hunting for food – which is actually more humane than raising animals in captivity for slaughter – but to me taking pleasure in the suffering & death of wild animals is a sociopathic trait.
I, for one, am a vegetarian, have been for more than 25 years, because I refuse to participate in the wanton killing of animals when there is so much good vegetable food around.
Mel its not necessarily wanton. I was a vegetarian for three years and found myself in terrible health with energy problems. I tried all manner of non-animal protein and even supplements. I only felt better when I started eating meat.
This doesn’t go for everyone but for me (and for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as a matter of fact) animal protein is needed for proper health.
That being said, there is no excuse for the factory farming and inhumane treatment of animals. I get all my meat from local farms and never eat an animal that suffered in a factory. So to me, what Pippa is up to is a more honest and proper way to eat meat. Those pheasants lived a happy and free life and are now a natural prt of the food chain. Compare that to factory farming: nothing natural about it!
OK /end rant!
I got really weak trying to be a vegetarian. I had to eat all the time cause the veggies and meat substitutes just went through my system like water. I gained a lot of weight and caught every cold and flu going around. Some of us just have bodies that need animal protein.
Those pheasants did not lead a free life. They lived as battery fowl for food do, in coops, and were only let out a few hours before being shot. They weren’t eaten; usually the carcasses are burned.
This is a highly profitable business run on dedicated estates. It’s not like Downton Abbey.
For anyone interested, this is what it’s like:
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/factfiles/shootingorganic.pdf
I live in the country. I eat meat. I regularly eat rabbits shot as culls by local farmers. I eat venison from culled deer. I’m a pragmatist when it comes to animal rights.
But the grouse-shooting industry is an unethical, horrible thing. And it *is* an industry. It certainly does nothing whatsoever for the countryside. It simply enables unethical business owners to relieve rich people of an awful lot of cash. People pay thousands of pounds for a day’s shooting. The birds are tame and have been reared in cages. They are rarely eaten.
Oh, just ugh to it all.
Sixer
Is this the same sport where the wings are clipped so they can’t get far and a person with a stick beats the bushes to scare the birds out of hiding?
Sixer I’m glad you chimed in on this one. I was hoping to read an opinion from someone who is actually familiar with the local practices.
Florc – yes. And the guns are limited in range so the idiots shooting can’t kill hapless passers by.
Since we’re talking about this, I think it’s my duty (I mean it :)), to add that the last time I had as much as a cold was in late 1999 (having been a vegetarian – not a vegan, mind you – since mid-1986). My skin is great, my hair is great, I have no diseases that I know of.
But I do get your concerns about proteins. However, I think your problems may have stemmed from eating an unbalanced diet.
For fantastic protein, look into hemp seeds/hemp butter, and beans.
Also, butter and cheese are animal proteins. (I am not a vegan, I do eat those.) Instead of ordinary eggs, however, I would highly recommend QUAIL eggs.
They are delicious and much healthier than hen eggs.
Mel
I do eat meat. and am very healthy with no protein concerns. The only illness I have is asthma and I have it since I was 2. My skin is clear and healthy. My hair is shiny and strong.
These things come from healthy diets. Not from being a vegetarian. That’s just a coincidence. Taking care of yourself by keeping your body hydrated, active, and not withholding vitamins and nutrients from it does this.
I know a few vegetarians that are in terrible shape.
I just wanted to add to your comment because I took from it that vegetarians are healthier than omnivores and that message is just incorrect.
so you are sure that after the pheasant hunting, she prepared the animal, cooked it and ate it? ‘Cause I would have some doubts about that (yes, even if someone else did all the hard work for her)
Pippa Tips!
Exactly.
Good point – I wish the “Harper” government in Canada would make factory farming illegal.
+1000
THIS
Post-Its, I completely agree. If you’re not vegan (and I am not), you really don’t have a leg to stand on when getting holier-than-thou about shooting game birds. And I say vegan deliberately rather than vegetarian: if you eat milk products and eggs, what do you think happens to male cows, goats, and chickens who can’t produce milk and eggs? Exactly what what the economics demand – they are slaughtered.
Shooting a wild bird (which is then sold to a game purveyor and sold on to the public as meat) is infinitely less objectionable than factory farming.
Sorry, I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I do think I have a leg to stand on. It’s ridiculous to say only a vegan who does not wear leather, etc. should care about inhumane treatment of animals.
I have flirted with veganism on and off and it requires more discipline than I have at this time. I limit my dairy to organic sources when I can or soy cheese, and free range eggs. I work hard to limit the impact my life has on animals.
It is no different from people who eat beef,chicken, and fish, but ethically avoid lamb, veal, etc. I honor anyone’s decision to avoid eating anything they find unethical.
Anyone curious about factory farm conditions – There’s a great documentary called “Death on a Factory Farm”.
Just stop calling it a “sport” and call it what it is: killing living creatures for personal pleasure.
Because that’s what it IS, no matter what excuses people find to adorn it with.
Then… we’ll see how popular it remains.
How do you know they aren’t going to eat them? People that protest hunting shouldn’t be allowed to eat meat.
I think the question is: is there a famine that would justify killing animals when there is so much other food?
I didn’t think so.
As for me, I have been a vegetarian for more than 25 years.
@Mel
What about when you stop killing those animals and they start wrecking the crops? Our family does some farming – nothing major. The deer population is so large that it’s near impossible to keep them from destroying it. There are at LEAST 20 deer living in a small area around my back yard. They’re competing for food. I’d much rather eat a healthy animal that was able to roam than eat an animal, or animal product from an animal that lived in essentially a couple square feet of space it’s whole short life.
@Meaghan, I feel like you hit the nail on the head. I think hunting is OK if the game is eaten. So if they are eating pheasant for the next few days or donate the meat, then I guess I am OK with it. However, killing just to kill and then throwing their carcasses away is just plain cruel.
@Erinn
I get what you say and I have no problem with it. We have the same problem where I live.
The problem is, there are way to many hunters who really enjoy killing.
@Meaghan ITA! I grew up in the country in Eastern Europe and a large hunt was a yearly event, all of our aunts, uncles and cousins would come down in the fall and we would all partake in a massive hunt. ALL the meat was used, not one eyeball or bone was wasted, and a lot of it was just the way things were done, the closest grocery store was over 2 hours away from us so hunting lots of meat and smoking or freezing it for the winter was more practical and a lot more economical than raising animals
@Mel – you know I really dislike it when people try to push their beliefs down others throats in the mistaken belief that their way is the only way, the right way. It’s next to being a dictator.
I eat meat, I have no problem with it as long as the animals are raised and killed humanely. It’s far more humane to hunt and eat animals than buy cellophane packaged meat raised in horrific conditions.
Having lived in England, those pheasants (which are common as flies there by the way) will definitely be eaten, so it is not wanton killing.
They will not be eaten. They were battery farmed to be shot. They will likely be burned. I have no problem with hunting for food or to maintain an environment balance. This is neither.
@sixer
do you have any more information?
Thank you Jaded – yes these birds will be eaten. There is an entire game bird industry which includes dealers in game, which is then sold to the public to eat. The game is delicious by the way and healthier than factory farmed poultry.
The industry is overseen by Defra – Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which has some interesting reports on the industry which you can find on the web.
There is less than a one in ten chance those birds will be eaten. Barely any from corporate estates are eaten. Most birds are cage-reared from battery eggs imported from France. There are a few old-style ethically managed estates left but they’re a tiny minority. All this is about is making money from people who pay thousands for a day out.
Agree totally, Jaded, thank you. The practice of eating meat is not in and of itself unethical.
I’m a hunter – always have been. But we also eat what we kill and we kill no more than we can eat.
So this kind of picture is normal where I am from.
This is how we were raised too. My fiance has had a pet squirrel at one point because his dog got it – released it once it was healthy.
But he also goes and hunts. They never leave anything to waste, they only kill enough to have some good food. They split it up between their family as well.
The deer population where they are is beyond thriving, and since a deer ran into our car (as it came to a stop) a couple weeks back, I’m feeling a little less than lovey towards them.
Where I live the deer have to be thinned or they’ll get so densely populated they’ll run out of food and starve. And the wild hog population is out of hand. Like for real. And hogs aren’t like Charlotte’s web. They’ll kill you and your livestock if it suits them and destroy your property like no other. Also there are some programs where hunters can take meat to factories to feed the homeless. So while posing in front of dead birds isn’t cute, not all hunting is bad.
Erinn, the deer population where I live in Saskatchewan last winter was really high too. The poor things were starving by the end of winter (and of course last winter we had one of the longest winters ever, October to May). My in-laws had three deer die on their front lawn from starvation! They live on an acreage, and the deer just ravaged their trees bare.
Joy, it sounds like you can explain this better than anyone I’ve spoken to about it. What is the harm in having a lot of deer running around? I’ve heard people say that in Texas and I just don’t get it. I’ve actually had people tell me they’d outnumber the people if it weren’t for hunting, like the deer are going to overtake us or something lol
You understand killing a deer or a fish but not a bird? I don’t understand killing any animals.
Honestly why would anyone care?
The middletons as a whole are terribly boring.
If only she would go on the hunt for a makeup artist. One eyeliner tutorial couldn’t hurt.
She’d probably shoot him before he manages to teach her anything.
Dying!
(From laughter… not because Pippa shot me.)
It was at a hunting event. Interestingly for me at least, my geneolagy traces back to the 1st Laird of Drum castle through my Father’s line. He was Robert the Bruce’s Armorer, and was rewarded with Drum Castle for his service. I am a member of Clan Irwin~just found it out this last year!! It is now a national heritage site, since the remaining family turned it over to Scotland.
Cool!
We have strong ties to Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace as well – we are related to Robert Wishart. My great gram was a Wishart from Edinburgh
What did people think it meant when they talk about the upper-class English passion for hunting?
I think it’s kinda tacky. As Kaiser said, people hunt and fish, they want to take pictures with their “prize”. I just in general have a problem with it. We live in an amazing age where we can get what we need at our local grocery store. To kill for sport seems cruel and unnecessary. Now I’m ready for the sh*t storm for saying this.
I am saddened and slightly shocked that you would even expect a shitstorm over such remarks. I would expect most civilised and self-reflecting people would agree with them.
So anyone who disagrees is neither civilized nor self-reflecting? Nice.
Because the chicken you can buy in the grocery store haven’t been tortured at all, have they?
They have, I’m sure. But the whole idea to kill something living, as sport, seems really wrong to me. I wouldn’t get a thrill out of, I’d feel guilty.
But they do eat those birds, right? As I said, my uncle is a hunter, but he never killed anything that didn’t get eaten later.
Sure, the peasants had a much better life that any factory chicken can ever dream of.
The point here is, killing is fun. And that is plain creepy., to say at least.
Good God, people. The (normal) people that hunt don’t wake up and think “OH GOOD. I get to kill things today. I just love seeing animals die.”
Honestly. HONESTLY. Do you really think that they enjoy the killing part? They enjoy the food, they enjoy the outdoors, they enjoy the season, and being able to come home with food to provide for their family.
@Erinn
and that is why some hunters, and quite a few of them hunters, book trips to romania, south africa, etc. to kill animals? Not enjoying the killing, but for food etc.?
Please.
@dagdag — Those people are rich, and they are a teeny tiny itty bitty subset of hunters. The vast majority of hunters are environmentally responsible and hate people who pull that sort of crap.
People who are okay with buying frozen chicken at the grocery store but think all hunters are horrible are… I’ll say uninformed. By the way, I was a vegetarian when I could afford it, and what sparked me wasn’t just the way animals in slaughterhouses are treated — it was the way human workers in slaughterhouses are treated. It is absolutely appalling.
@dagdag
If you read my post I say NORMAL hunters. The people that go to Africa and kill big game are sick. I will say that outright. But like Emily said, they are a SMALL subset of the hunters. They aren’t the average person AT ALL which is likely why you hear so much about it.
I’ll take hunting over factory farming any day. Where do you think most grocery store meat comes from?
Why don’t you google slaughterhouses? I am trying to say this in the nicest way possible, but take your head out of the sand.
Okay Erin, I really don’t get your point . They could enjoy all those things without killing animals, so obviously YES they do enjoy it. Secondly killing is bloodlust and those people creep me out. I would not choose to kill an animal for fun to watch it die. Third… Everyone is complaining about slaughterhouses as if hunting or cruel factories are the only option. There are humane animal farms that raise meat in a low impact kind way. Also, one can be a vegetarian and avoid the meat eating business all together. For those that got sick not eating meat, animal flesh is not the only way or even the most efficient way to get proteins, so I wonder if these people were informed in how to construct a proper vegitarian diet.
@LeLe
Those humane farms are not available everywhere. I live in a small town in the maritimes. We don’t have much choice at all where we buy our groceries.
Does my fiance wake up and think about how much he loves to kill things during hunting season? F— no. His family grew up with next to nothing. They had to provide for their family – and for them hunting was a way to do this. You can get up in arms when people with money go out kill animals, and waste the meat, or hunt for sport only. But when people are providing for their family, you really don’t have to make them feel like shit about it.
He does not go hunt to ‘watch an animal die’ what you are describing is a psychopath – PLEASE before insulting a large group of regular people INFORM yourself.
The things you are describing are not the AVERAGE hunter.
Nobody HAS to be a vegetarian, just as nobody HAS to eat meat. I have a cousin that is a vegetarian and in vet school. Thankfully she is not the kind of person who think her views are the only one that matter, and respects everyone’s choices regardless of whether they line up wtih her own.
Erinn, I simply don’t agree. The people in the picture are not doing it just to survive. I know you’re talking about your own experience, but you completely changed the context of Pippa and her friends doing it. I responded to your comment about hunting for the other aspects of joy in it… Not your response about survival. I stand by that, you can enjoy those things without the killing, so why else do the hunting part? Lastly, you took hunting to a very specific place of having to to survive or provide. In my mind that is different. I disagree though that this is the average sport hunters reason for hunting. I mean, what to you mean average hunter? Where? In the world? In the UK? In the US? Where I live those that hunt do it for sport not survival, and that creeps me out.
@Lele25
“so I wonder if these people were informed in how to construct a proper vegitarian diet”
Exactly. I think that may have been their problem, too.
As I said in another comment, I’ve been a vegetarian since 1986 and haven’t even had a cold since 1999.
I’ve seen pictures of factory farms. Hunting seems, to me, to be far more humane.
Trophy hunting is NEVER ok.
It doesn’t matter the species… bird, fish, deer, bear… hunting for your ego is NEVER acceptable.
(I’m assuming they aren’t eating those pheasants, correct?)
If they DO eat the the birds, then.. while it’s not my thing… it’s more understandable.
This is what the British uppercrust horsey set do…..kill birds and foxes. Pippa fits in quite nicely. The photo was offensive and jarring……those poor birds and it is not like those stupid women are going to pluck and cook them either.
Pheasants are tasty. And hunting them is decidedly more work that driving to the supermarket and buying a chicken.
Pheasant is delicious-of course they are eating them. It’s almost like a gamey duck. It makes great breakfast sausage. (mixed with some pork for the needed fat of course)
Trophy hunting is gross (hunting a elephant, a rhino or a fox for fun), but eating the food that you hunt like elk, deer, pheasant or fish is better than the most of the places meat in the grocery store comes from.
Right on! Wild game is delicious and a delicacy, and these birds are from a game farm. No hunter delights in shooting things because they enjoy killing. It’s a sport, a skill, and you eat what you kill. It’s decidedly more humane for an animal to be raised naturally in the outdoors and die quickly from a gunshot than to be raised in a commercial chicken facility and never step foot outside, only to be “processed” in the end.
Thank you! Finally someone is pointing out here that hunters don’t shoot animals because it’s fun to kill and enjoyable to watch something die. It is a sport like many others that takes skill. You must find the bird, or a dog finds it, you must stealthily creep near it, when it starts to fly you must have incredibly steady aim to follow it as it goes and shoot it. Skilled hunters would never leave a bird down. It’s always retrieved usually by the dog. If it’s only wounded, it’s put out of its misery. It’s always eaten. Typical shoots end in a photo of the hunters with their quarry. The more they bag, the better skilled they are.
I mentioned Defra the UK Department
for Environment
Food & Rural Affairs above – this comes from their report “After the guns have taken home a brace of pheasant, partridge or grouse following the day’s shoot, beaters may be offered the chance to buy some. The practice of charging beaters for birds taken only
appears to happen on the small number of big shoots. The remainder are sold direct to local pubs, butchers or to game dealers to supply larger markets, such as retail butchers. As stated above, the majority of birds are exported, however, with Belgium a key market. It has been reported that dealers take birds across the Channel with birds in feather in chilled lorries.”
So yes the birds are eaten.
I’m not a hunter but this sort of things is normal in Scotland. I sometimes wonder if people don’t realize there are cultural differences from North America to the UK. I know I sure did when I moved from Canada to Scotland and had a bit of a shock.
I had the same in the opposite direction. I had huge cultural shock when i first lived in USA.
I was really surprised. Things I took for granted in North America where either really rare or completely unheard of in the UK. I’m getting more used to it now after living there for a year but it’s still sometimes hard to comprehend. It’s a big reason as to why it bothers me when they harp on the Middleton women about their make up. In the UK, most women that ages are some sort of orange with lots of black eyeliner and mascara.
Hunting is completely normal where I grew up in the USA (small town in Michigan). There is a large divide in the US between the country, the suburbs, the exurbs, small towns, medium towns, and cities. Our class divides are also huge, but we pretend those divides are not there, and so we end up in a very weird place. Then there’s the fact that this is a very big country, and we end up with Americans who have totally different experiences of what it means to be an American. I very often find myself having more in common with people from Australia or Scotland than with people who grew up in Alabama or Los Angeles, for instance.
Well I’m Scottish, myself and my friends have never been hunting and our skin tone is pretty pale! The hunting thing is common in the upper classes and most people in this country also think Middleton is wearing too much eyeliner and fake tan.
That’s why I said, most and not all. Walking up and down the high street in Edinburgh, you see all sorts of orangeness going on there with copious amounts of eyeliner and mascara! Not everyone is going to follow suit but it seems to be the thing to do there versus in North America.
As for the hunting, all the people I’ve met and been exposed to since living in Edinburgh have been hunters or pro-hunting. I’m not a fan of it but it seems to be popular with the people I know. It’s all relative to where you are and who you know! 🙂
I guess it is about who you’re friends with and come into contact with. Btw, I also live and work in Edinburgh 🙂
I assume the birds are going to be eaten? I swear people these days just go about looking for reasons to be upset
I’m weirdly torn – on the one hand, I come from a family of hunters (and while I don’t enjoy it, I’ve dispatched my own meals more than a few time. From the cranky old rooster that had a date with the stewpot to a buck that got caught in a neighbors barbed wire and torn to bits in his fright. Sometimes quick and clean is the only option left and you don’t waste what you kill.) and, if as you say, they eat what they kill – fine.
On the other side of it – I actually know a fair number of ‘landed’ gals from both Scotland & the UK (weird childhood – school I went to for a while was a haven for government kids and the kids of overseas officers & the like) and a lot of them were both loved the hunting weekends while at the same time refused point blank to eat game. Pheasant killed ~right~ is tasty. Pheasant that some idiot has blown away at with shot (large pellet loads to make up for the fact they can’t aim for crap) and basically peppered with gunpowder and metal fragments… not so much.
Hunting to feed your family I support. Better for a person (and the planet) then factory farmed any day! Hunting responsibly, even enjoying it (just cause I don’t, doesn’t mean I don’t ‘get’ it. It’s equal parts distaste for the killing blow AND being expected to tramp around in the cold & wet in ungodly hours before dawn if I’m honest!) is fine. But there is something about these kind of hunts that DOES unsettle me. Maybe it’s just how disconnected these smiling gals seem from the act. The girls I grew up with did the shooting – but their handlers organized the hunt, took care of their weapons, lined up the shots, retrieved the felled animals (often having to make it final, it’s one thing to blast away from a distance, but a clean kill is often not high on the list of mandatory skills with this kind of group outing), cleaned the carcasses, and even took care of any and all cooking or prepping. Not one of the girls I knew could even clean their own gun, they just took the loaded weapon handed to them and blasted when someone ELSE told them too. I know that isn’t the case with all hunters, and it might not be a fair charge against these….
But there IS just something vaguely upsetting in the photos and for the life of me, I can’t understand what it is! Why this bothers me so much more than the trophy photos of bucks and wild boar I see all over the place seems unfair but, well. There ya go.
Jenna – like you i know a few landed ‘gals’ and guys. Hunting for them is exactly as you have described. The hunters on this thread are so removed from the reality of what happens at these shoots in the UK.
Any and all birds not eaten, those that can’t be sold at the village shop/local butcher will simply be burned.
As it is shooting season, each and every single weekend will have a group of hunters like the women above, striving to shoot as many birds as possible. Birds, if i may add, bred specifically for this purpose.
I think what the hunters on this thread fail to see or understand is that the photo is of a shoot, but it’s not shooting as they know it, unless they do the same kind of hunting. apples and oranges.
There are a lot of hunters in the area where I grew up. But they need to get a licence and they are always working together with the foresters. They are not hunting for trophies, but hunting to help keep populations in check. Otherwise, they are not allowed to hunt.
It’s hunting season, lots of people do it and post it. Nothing wrong with this at least from where I come from
I bow hunt whitetail deer with my dad, and even my super vegetarian friends don’t have a problem with it. Granted that’s because they’re vegetarians because of how animals are treated when they’re being raised for food. Plus, aside from enjoying the sport of it, we use the deer for food. We literally live off that venison. I can guarantee that the deer we hunt (and turkeys, for some of my friends) live better, healthier, happier lives than the ones whose meat will be sold in the supermarket. I know people who’ve had good hunting seasons who won’t eat all the meat and then donate it. I guess my point is that people like this give hunting a really bad rap. If you’re not using the meat for “the circle of life”, it’s a lot harder to defend it for pure sport.
I’m with you. I don’t eat much meat (only seafood) and it’s because of how horribly the farm animals are treated. I have no problem with hunting animals for food.
This!
Bow hunting is different to me. It really is.
With bow hunting, it’s something that requires patience, training, and skill. With a gun you just sit around and then when something comes into view you pull the trigger.
This is an oversimplification I know, but I have a coworker who bow hunts and he has told me about it. He says that often he doesn’t even end up shooting the bow, because with bow hunting you only get one shot and it has to be perfect.
Bow hunting requires discipline and skill, and as far as I know, as soon as the deer has been killed they butcher the animal themselves and then distribute the meat to friends and neighbors.
Quite a bit different from the “Look at all these trapped animals we shot! Isn’t it funny?!?” photograph at the top of this post. Also I very much doubt that those women in the photo plucked and cleaned those birds themselves….
There is also much patience and skill required for using a gun, and you also usually only get one shot because the noise scares the animal away. A really good shot with either weapon is going to kill the animal instantly, but a poor shot with either is going to cause a slower death for the animal. I’ve never heard anyone make any sort of claim that bow hunting is somehow more humane than using a gun, usually the opposite. I have no problem with either, but to negate the finesse and skill required of using a gun doesn’t really accomplish anything but giving more gullible people a reason to dislike guns in general.
Have you ever fired a gun? Because it’s definitely not waiting for something to walk out and pulling a trigger. There is skill to it. There is patience to it.
ALSO;
When my family hunts, with their ‘unskilled’ firearms they clean the deer immediately, then split it with their family.
I don’t hunt myself, but from what I’ve heard from people who are rifle hunters, they get one, MAYBE two, shots at an animal. And they are done for the day after killing one deer, or a few rabbits or ducks or pheasants – which they bring home to eat. That is something that takes skill, patience and training.
But I also know of jackasses who think “hunting” is getting drunk in the woods and firing shots ant ANYTHING that moves, and just leaving the dying animals to suffer. Grrrr!!!
“But I also know of jackasses who think “hunting” is getting drunk in the woods and firing shots ant ANYTHING that moves, and just leaving the dying animals to suffer. Grrrr!!!”
I lived in rural Wyoming for one summer, and this is what the ‘poachers’ as they were called, used to do from the backs of their pickup trucks at night for fun. They would use a bright light to attract the mule deer and then after shooting the deer they would just drive away.
Sometimes shooting a gun is done with skil…and other times the gun is used to spray a bunch of helpless animals with bullets. Bit more difficult to inflict that kind of senseless damage with a bow.
I agree Savanna and I’m vegetarian too. Much better to be killed cleanly after the life you’re supposed to lead.
That being said, I think it should be sport, and it’s NOT sporting to shoot at birds who have no chance of getting away. Or putting animals in a pen and shooting them. Where’s the sport in that.
I couldn’t kill anything. I even ask Mr. bluhare to catch and release spiders in the house. 🙂
There are tens of millions of hunters in the U.S. All of them have a picture of themselves standing in front of their kill. This is not some cultural difference between the U.S. and upper crust British; it’s a culture clash between hunters and non hunters the world over.
Meanwhile, those eggs you just bought at that nice clean grocery store came from a chicken that lives its life in a box so small it can’t turn around.
THIS.
Question. And I’m being serious here because I really don’t know. Why does it seem like in Britain only the rich hunt, while in the US people of all social classes do it?
Access to land and the social aspects of hunting clubs, mostly. There just isn’t the same access to public hunting lands in the UK that we have in the USA — and actually, some of the US’s hunting laws were developed in the 18th century precisely because of the UK’s limits on “poaching.” Shooting m’lord’s deer was a capital offense, and colonialists were going to have none of that.
I see photos like this all over my Facebook in the autumn, from family members in the States going hunting with their kids. The 10-year old’s first bear, the collection of preteen/teen cousins in front of a line of pheasant or duck, I guess a bunch of adult women with their kill doesn’t seem that bad to me. Are they supposed to be looking glum? They went out intending to bring home a full bag.
(The dirty “secret” of bird hunting is that gamekeepers raise those birds just to be shot. Factory hunting, in a way, and quite expensive for the landowners, too. But we do it in the States as well — remember when Cheney shot his friend in the face by accident? They were shooting on a guaranteed-kill preserve.)
Lots of reasons, some already covered, including access to land, knowing the “right people”, affording the firearms, going through the hassle of shotgun certificates (to own one) and various lessons etc… Shoot days like this cost a fortune. These birds aren’t wild as such; they are hatched and raised, fed and protected, then the shoot is almost the equivalent of a farmer’s harvest.
BASC is a good organisation to look at if you’re interested (British Association for Shooting and Conservation).
YES. Thank you! I’m not a hunter, it’s not my thing, but my Facebook Newsfeed during hunting season is filled with pictures like this of people standing with their kill. At most, those kind of pictures are gross, but not necessarily shocking- especially considering the prevalence of pictures like this out there, and hunting shows on TV. The birds will be eaten. I think it’s a big deal being made out of nothing.
I find the comments on this post very odd. It’s not simply a choice between Purdue and shooting an animal, guys.
Many of us, like myself, only buy free-range or organic meat and eggs. Not sure where y’all live but we have amazing farmers market and a Whole Foods on every block out here-plenty of access to meat from animals that were not raised in deplorable conditions.
You are exceedingly lucky. Where I live, there is no such access. It is possible to get free-range meat and such, but it is FAR more expensive than the alternative. Plain and simply, we cannot afford it. I wish we could, but it is not a possibility.
Oh it isn’t cheap, that’s for sure.
…but I wouldn’t eat meat unless it was organic/free-range.
You can get cage-free eggs for pretty cheap at most supermarkets-at the one near me they were on sale for $2.49/dozen last week.
It’s easy to say that when you have a real choice. Meat has more caloric density than other options. I have been a vegetarian in the past; I know how to do it. But where I live now, and on my income, I cannot do it unless I decide to subsist on beans and rice. Which I am definitely not willing to do.
We do eat cage-free, free-range eggs, btw. Those aren’t that much more expensive than the alternative. Free-range meat is far more expensive than the alternative, even when it’s available.
If you want poor people to start eating free range meat, the solution is not to lecture at them. Treating people as inferior never gets them on your side. Giving people a sensible amount for food stamps, as opposed to the amount they get now which is not enough for anything BUT rice and beans (and sometimes not even that), would be a start. Also, finding ways for people to have more access to such food, and at a reasonable price, would help. Someone could probably start a profitable business doing just that.
OKITT –
We have two main grocery stores, and a couple of other small ma and pop operations. We don’t have a lot of choice where the groceries come from because they all get the meat from the same main suppliers.
I’m wary about free-range anything because it can be classified as ‘free range’ as long as the chickens were not in a cage – they can be jam packed into a pen, and it still be called free-range.
I barely eat eggs, and I have cut my meat consumption down considerably, but I am not willing to become a full blown vegetarian.
That’s what I try to do as well. I don’t eat very much meat, but when I do buy it, I try for free range/organic. Same with eggs – if your local supermarket doesn’t have them or they’re too expense, look online. I found out there’s a tiny little farm near me that sells them pretty cheap, but my stores have them too.
I have never gone hunting and won’t ever. I am OK with those who do for food and are responsible about it. Trophy hunting, especially rare and exotic animals, upsets and disgusts me.
Emily C-“treating people as inferior”?
That would mean more if it wasn’t coming from you, someone who insists on patronizing every commenter who deigns to voice an opinion that contradicts yours.
…so I’m just gonna suggest that you take your own advice on that one.
The truth is that almost every grocery store in this country has an organic/natural food section and it’s not hard to time it when there’s a sale and stock up in your freezer. Perpetuating the idea that people don’t have the option just makes you part of the problem and doesn’t really help in any way, shape or form. I wasn’t “lecturing” I was simply offering a potential solution to a problem.
Whole Foods DOES take food stamps. If you hit the Wednesday Flash Sale at WF, you can get a lot of produce for CHEAPER than at a regular grocery store.
Maybe it’s not incredibly convenient, but it’s not impossible to eat healthy/and or organic with proper planning.
@Erinn-you’re confusing “free-range” with “cage-free”.
Free-range eggs are laid from hens that have the opportunity to go outside. Smaller farms may keep birds outside under a canopy area. They may travel in and out of a barn at free will or spend some portion of their day roaming outdoors.
@TheOriginalKitten
Yes! I love the awesomeness of your comment. You are so articulate and to the point.
This.
And I wonder how much of the outrage is because she’s a woman. Also how much of it is because she’s a Middleton; there seems to be a lot of scorn based on the fact that she wasn’t born an aristocrat floating around. Then there’s the fact that she’s her, and she’s legitimately annoying for other reasons. But for this one? I’ve never seen anyone flip out over Prince Harry hunting.
I’ll find it a disgusting picture in any case: American or English men or women hunter.
My father used to be an hunter, and I remember me as a child crying over those dead animals.
She’s such a social climber-that’s what I take away from these photos.
Oh brave internet warriors when will your offense ever end?
Well… I personally don’t care (as long as they eat what they hunt it’s not any worse than eating meat someone else slaughtered) but how dumb is this girl???
I’m seriously more offended at how dumb she is lol, the royal family has been trying to get rid of the image of being bloodsporters for a while and Pippa… just doesn’t get it.
The problem is that this kind of “hunting” is noting more than a funsport for the bored rich. They point their guns on every animal and have fun.
Such things have nothing to do with real hunting. A real hunter shoots only what he needs and not 50+ animals on a single hunting trip.
These pheasants were set free in the area for stupid hunting parties. An easy prey. How some people defend this as “hunting for food” is beyond me. It´s only about the killing. These rich kids are even to lazy to chase an animal. They shoot the birds on a silverplate and pose for pictures.
You are so right! Grinning idiots in front of dead animals. They are not hunting for food – they do it for pleasure. Do you really think Pippa or any other of this lot would go out and shoot, pluck and clean a pheasant for dinner? As if! She’d go to Harrods.
i cant wait to hear what morissey has to say about this
Clearly, she needs the feathers for her tacky hats.
On a less light note, I too am completely offended by this. I actually respect hunting (for food), and I generally believe that hunted animals have a better life than the meat you buy at the grocery store. But the way these animals are laid out like a trash pile in this photo – well, it’s really disrespectful. They are God’s creatures and that should be acknowledged – not mocked, which is the only way this photo can be interpreted.
Plus you know that after that photograph was taken, they all just walked away and left it to the servants.
There wasn’t anything about, “Does anyone have a cart or something where we can put the birds on their way to be cleaned? Who’s good at cleaning pheasants?” They just shot these trapped animals for fun and then left the carcasses behind after getting their photo op.
I think the people on here saying, ‘But this isn’t real hunting’ have a very good point.
eh… I don’t get what the big deal is. Yeah, it was stupid to post a picture online with her smiling with 50 dead birds in front of her, but it’s not like these birds go to waste. Usually if the hunter doesn’t want them, they get sold to local restaurants etc… depending on the deal the hunting ground has with the hunters and so on. Let’s not forget they’re not hunting an endangered species for fun, but they’re hunting a very common animal which will be used as food. I’d get the outrage if it had been an elephant or rhino, but this…
Not just a common species, but a species being raised precisely for the hunting season. There’s an entire exhibition at Balmoral about the work of the game-wardens all year long to build up the animal populations so the queen and her guests have good hunting during their stay.
In our family, hunting is done and the animal processed for food. There is no “sport” hunting. When we fish, we eat what we catch. My grandparents all had gardens and raised chickens which provided eggs and meat. That being said, to be hunting for sport is just foolish-how does it make you feel to kill something just because you can?
How many of the people freaking out are meat-eaters? Massive hypocrisy.
I don’t like hunting either, but as I eat meat, I have absolutely no standing to judge people who do. If they aren’t hunting endangered species or hurting the environment in some way, there is nothing wrong with it that also isn’t wrong — more wrong, usually — with eating pre-packaged meat and poultry. Chicken farms kill way, way more birds every year, and worse, most of them torture the birds their whole lives before killing them.
Btw, hunters are often big environmental advocates. And hunting is not in any way incongruous with nursing animals back to health, or loving them as pets. You might as well say you can’t understand how anyone can eat a burger and still love their dog.
If you don’t like hunting, don’t do it, but there is nothing morally wrong with it that is not also much more morally wrong with buying a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. (There are good free-range turkey farms, but their turkey is more expensive, so then we get into how class privilege informs this whole thing.) If you think killing and eating animals is wrong, period, then that’s a morally consistent attitude. But you’d be better off spending your time advocating against poultry farms.
I don’t eat meat.
However, you are wrong forcing your moral view onto others. Simply, we humans must eat to survive. No leisure activity, including hunting for sport, rises to the level of necessity for survival.
Pippa Middleton is a botoxed hag with a dumpy sense of style perfectly suited to her pathetic existence as a fame leacher.
That gets my nomination for Best Sentence Ever Written in a Middleton Post.
Amen, Thinker! 🙂
i love you for this comment
It’s also a class thing – hunting is seen as ‘rah’, posh and entitled.
In the US, it’s seen as something done by people who live in the country and are definitely not rich. At least where I come from.
once when i was little, my father said hunting was for hillbillies and european nobility and that both were to be avoided
Hunting is big in the UK amongst the upper class, like polo playing. All boys are expected to know how to do this and girls have become more involved as well as things have modernized.
Easier slaughter equals modernized?
In The UK, it’s not called “hunting.” It’s called “shooting.” One goes out on a pheasant “shoot.” “Hunting” is for the poors.
Interesting that they would call it that – almost like they’re differentiating themselves from the poors who hunt for food.
They shoot for fun! Yay!
Actually in the UK, “hunting” refers to foxhunting on a horse. Actually going after foxes to kill them is now banned, but the hunts still exist and use scented drags instead.
I read on the DM that when she went deer and boar hunting it was in France. And… I don’t really understand how she pulled that off. It’s very tightly regulated here. First you can’t use someone else’s firearm just like that, that’s illegal. And you need a hunting permit to kill animals in the wild. Maybe it’s different on a private estate, I don’t know, I doubt it though. The Pippa gets what the Pippa wants I guess.
Edit: new article is more precise: “earlier this year [she] travelled to France for a boar and deer hunt, one of several hosted each year by the family of Belgian billionaire Albert, Baron Frere.”
Woah. So apparently you *can* do that kind of thing even without any of the proper permits as long as you do it on your own land I suppose… this is messed up.
How do you know they didn’t have the proper permits? There’s absolutely no indication that the law was broken in any way whatsoever. Not sure why you’d assume no permits from an article that doesn’t even discuss the issue.
… you realize I’m talking about French law and not this hunting trip near Edinburgh, right?
The boar hunt was in Belgium, not in France. Looks like the number of boar has increased recently and culling has become necessary.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/massive-200-man-boar-hunt-in-belgium-yields-single-swine-victim-1.1161282
sick humans. There is no “PRIZE” for snuffing out another’s life – except maybe karma’s bite when it comes back around at you.
AMEN.
I wish I could share your belief in “karma” (I’ve seen way too many pure and generous people be nothing but kicked and betrayed till the day they died), but I do share every other thought you’ve expressed here.
My grip on karma is starting to feel a little tenuous too.
I don’t understand why Pippa is being singled out. What about the other nine women? They killed the birds also and they look just as pleased as Pippa. It was a hunting party weekend. That’s what aristos love to do.
Personally, the only problem I have is with the people who act like they’ve never seen dead birds before. There are people in the world who hunt animals for food. Get over yourselves. And for the people who say hunting for food is cruel and why don’t we all just shop in the grocery store for our food . . . well, you obviously have no clue how cruel life is for the chickens, cows and pigs that are slaughtered for food every year. These birds lived a glorious life compared to them.
I grew up in a house with 17 other people and my father, uncles and grandfather hunted rabbits and birds and they fished every week in order to feed all of us. Come on people, save your pity and outrage for something important, like hungry children in the world who would give anything for one of those dead birds.
just to clarify: she is hunting/killing for fun. a sport. not for food. A SPORT. Shame on you for twisting the story into something that is not. Pippa doesn’t have 17 kids a home to feed. People point out that killing innocent birds for fun is a terrible thing…and you say they should focus on kids that are starving? O.M.G!
This is what people on this thread seem to miss while cocooning themselves in their “I am being persecuted because I hunt and eat meat” mentality:
Pippa and her friends aren’t hunting for survival. They are not hunting because they have nothing to eat. So let’s stop comparing ourselves to them because it’s useless and the logic is flawed.
Hunting for food is not a bad thing. Hunting to conserve the ecosystem is not a bad thing.
Hunting for sport, however, is different. They are shooting animals because it’s the fashionable thing to do.
You said it yourself, this is what many rich folks do with their time. It’s not because they are struggling to survive. It’s because they can afford to shoot animals without the pressure of consuming every animal they kill.
These birds were raised in a farm then released to be shot and killed. These birds were NOT sought and hunted in the wild.
What do you think is the purpose of shooting birds from a farm when they can just commission a butcher to get them 50 dead pheasants for cooking and eating if their real purpose for shooting these birds is to get some food?
Paying to shoot animals that are bred and raised in a farm is not hunting at all. It’s a shooting trip. These pretentious “hunters” were doing it for their enjoyment and entertainment, not out of necessity and survival.
completely agree.
Pippa should be ashamed of herself, but she isn’t. She wants to blend in with the asshole upper crust. That’s why she’s doing this. Just like her obscene sister.
The people above me pretty much said it all. But I will add two more things, (1) I sincerely hope your father and uncles didn’t ENJOY killing those rabbits to feed you, because that would be sick. In this case, Pippa is ENJOYING the killing, so it’s not for sustenance. And, (2) you mentioned hungry children who need those birds — well, thanks to selfish rich people like Pippa, those particular birds will never go to feed hungry children, because they are being used to amuse rich brats. So really, even your own arguments do nothing to excuse what Pippa did.
They enjoyed hunting very much. First because it fed their families and second because it was what they had done all their lives. It was a bonding time for them with each other. Animals have been food for humans since the beginning of time and hunting was a coming of age thing and it was fun. People enjoyed it then and I’m really glad some people still enjoy it in spite of people who act as if it’s a crime.
Well said, mslewis!
+10. Agree, mslewis.
+1 mslewis!
Apparently some people would only be happy with shooting if Pippa was starving and sadly pulled out her gun with one single bullet and having felled a bird had a funeral for it.
Just to clarify one point – Pippa didn’t post or release these photos. They were apparently posted on the unlocked social media site (I can’t remember which one) of one of the men who was attending. Someone tipped off one of the tabloids (probably for money) and they got printed.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t know what she is up to since she is trying to have a career as someone in the public eye, but at least in this case, she was on a private estate and probably assumed these photos would be restricted to like minded people.
What is up with these women’s skin? They always look sunburnt, or like they just got a chemical peel or something. Don’t they use sunblock or moisturize?
You hit the nail on the head when you wrote “I was not raised that way”. Pippa was raised with pheasant hunting as a real and gentleperson’s sport. Americans don’t get it in spite of our love of guns but Pippa’s shoot more than likely resulted in an extravagant lunch or dinner. If this is so “gross” than might I suggest we all not eat meat at all? Really, how do you think that chicken cordon blue got on your plate? Personally the idea of hunting for your food is better than buying frozen bits of tortured animal at the local grocer.
Please don’t tell me that eating meat is murder. If you personally will not eat for spiritual or environmental reasons then kudos to you.
People do kill animals all the time, for various and legitimate reasons, and I personally include eating them as one of the valid reasons. HOWEVER, I am disgusted by people who ENJOY killing those animals. Yes, we kill animals to eat. But I would be very alarmed if the guy working at the slaughter house got some kind of enjoyment from killing the cows. And my vet had to put down two of my dogs — but I would be concerned if the vet ENJOYED doing it. That is what is so disgusting about people bragging about or enjoying hunting — that they ENJOY the killing. That’s just wrong. Hunters make me sick.
I agree with you, Deedles. The fact of the matter is that in aristocratic circles, this is (and has been for many, many centuries) a common past time.
Pippa was not raised an aristocrat nor did she grow up hunting.
This is a past time she took up to fit in better with her aristocratic friends.
The same for ALL the middletons.
So what? She’s been doing it since University (so more than 10 years). She is apparently good at it, enjoys it and has friends who invite her to shooting parties at their estates.
Are we not allowed to learn new activities after the age of 12?
Justme – did you read the comment i was responding to or did you read my comment in a vacuum and decide i was being snarky in a vacuum???
Let me clarify. Previous commentor said that this was an aristocratic past time and something they all grew up doing and thus we should give Pippa a break. My comment was in response to that. Fact *is* that Pippa isn’t an Aristocrat nor did she grow up hunting/shooting/fishing as they all do.
She took up hunting/fishing/shooting to fit in with her new aristocratic friends. For her it is not a life long tradition.
She made a point of knowing these types of people and she took up their past times. That is my point.
Yes I read it and I still wonder – why should she be implicitly criticized for this? So she did not grow up shooting and she got into it because she wanted to fit in with the aristocrats she had befriended. Don’t we all do different things as we meet different people? I never went to opera until I started working with people who were heavily involved with it. When I started to go I realized that I truly enjoyed it. Why is it impossible that Pippa (sporty Pippa) has become interested in and enjoys field sports?
I guess that since I do not regard field sports as something awful and repulsive, but as something people do as . . well sports.. I see no need to cut Pippa a break – why should a break need to be cut?
‘Dead bird carcasses’… oh, you mean those on the ground? I thought you meant the standing giggling ones.
Hunting is conservation. Do a little research, folks.
This! Thank you, Jen.
While I find Pips annoying, I can’t throw her any shade in this matter since I had chicken for dinner.
Just horrible.
For me,it had nothing to do with hunting. That photo is just creepy and disturbing. They smiled in photos where dead birds are in front of them. That’s just stupid no matter which way you slice it. I’m fine with them hunting. It’s none of my business.
I don’t believe these girls are smiling b/c they are thinking of how these birds will make a nice meal for someone, at all. Rather, they are smiling from pride in themselves, for having cold bloodedly hunted down these poor birds which had very little chance–well, none–to get away. Whether or not the meat will go to feed people, or not, doesn’t matter to these rich women; it is pure sport to them, in the sense that they do not regard these birds as living creatures. I would go as far as to say that there is something frankly sadistic about this whole upper class British “game”, and about the privileged, bored people who engage in it.
Pippa has gal pals!
I don’t know, I feel like this is a non-controversy. I eat meat so I guess I’m not that bothered by the carcasses of dead birds (though I wouldn’t really want to stand by them, standing by anything dead skeeves me out and yes that includes humans). In other countries you can buy live chickens at markets which are slaughtered right in front of you and nobody is getting up in arms about that. Hunters like to pose with their prize–as long as they aren’t doing anything inappropriate with the dead carcasss I don’t really see a problem. It’s not like they taunted the animals before it was killed (a la bullfighting, which I am very much against).
Also don’t some people like stuffing animals like dead bears for rugs or deer heads and mount them on their walls? How is that any less creepy than this picture?
She is set [by the media at least] to be the badly behaved sibling [like Prince Harry in his Nazi fancy dress costume and that Las Vegas nudie shot, as well as Princess Margaret and her international gallivanting and toy boys]
It’s one thing to kill and eat the animal you hunt, but taking photographs with hunting trophies is, at least in the 21st century, considered bloody awful behaviour.
It’s no different to the sickos who pay to hunt in Africa [even today] and then take photographs with their kills.
There is no real hunting today. Hunting by the privileged today is about killing defenceless animals that have no way to fight back. As for these birds. I doubt they are wild. They’re usually reared for leisure hunting.
Pathetic really and she – due to her status – should have known better than to leave the door wide open for this type of scrutiny.
well. the girl has friends at least. i just wish her sister had some…
I’ve been a huge critic of Miley. Until I actually listened to Wrecking Ball. Yeah. She didn’t write it but it’s awsome. It’s my relationship. Yeah. So I’m not gonna bitch on her anymore. I’m getting a lot of comfort from this song right now. Which is what music, good or bad, is for.?
Ah, the British!
OK, so what? Pheasant is delicious and there are farms all over the US that raise pheasants for hunting too. It’s a business, like any other but at least the bird has a chance to get away unlike a chicken. Venison is also delicious and yes, it tastes better if you have stalked and killed it yourself. It’s a primal thing that buying it shrink wrapped in the grocery store doesn’t satisfy.
“you look like a pumpkin, bitch!” that’s all I have to say.
Lots of you folks, including the webmaster must think that Bambi was a documentary.