The tireless Protect the Wild has deplored the appointment (perhaps I should say anointment, the royals seem to like a bit of anointing) of a king, Charles Windsor (i.e. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) as its new patron, describing him as an animal abuser. It is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, so I can see that it would have been difficult and extremely controversial to do otherwise, but he does not merit the extravagant claims made alongside the announcement. He brought his children up to shoot birds, lobbied Tony Bliar (sic) to bring in the badger cull and also not to ban fox hunting which the king described as “completely natural – in that it relies entirely on man’s ancient and, indeed, romantic relationship with dogs and horses.” He accused opposers of fox hunting of being motivated by class war and as we know from Bliar himself, the Hunting Act was deliberately drawn up so as to be full of loopholes. The king allegedly said to friends “If the Labour Government ever gets around to banning fox hunting, I might as well leave this country and spend the rest of my life skiing.” Whether he said it or not, according to Protect the Wild, he and his wife are keen fox hunters. And no one, surely, can be both “a powerful voice for nature” and “inspire more people than ever to create a better world for every animal” whilst enjoying the fruits of the pheasant shooting industry. Protect the Wild include a reminder that according to Wild Justice “Pheasants and partridges gobble up native vegetation, insects and reptiles, and they leave their droppings all over sensitive habitats. When they are dead, they are feeding foxes and scavengers, which then eat other protected species.” – as well as looking set to wipe out our population of adders altogether. Then there is lead pollution and of course raptor persecution.
Animal Aid submitted freedom of information requests to reveal that over 7,000 mammals and birds were murdered on royal land in one year, many of them to protect the battery-farmed pheasant population. And let’s not forget the grouse moors and their devastating impact, both in terms of peat burning and creating wildlife deserts over huge swathes of land.
A peculiar, extremely red, new portrait of the king, making Lorraine Kelly feel as though he is looking at her “from the gates of hell” and by others as symbolic of the bloodshed of empire, presumably unintentionally, seems highly appropriate in the context of wildlife and nature too.
The king’s father was a tiger killer as I have mentioned elsewhere and there are those ridiculous bearksin hats, attempts to persuade the powers that be to replace them with an visually indistinguishable alternative having been fiercely resisted. The RSPCA, whose seal of approval has been given to some of the most dreadful farms, in the country, would have done better for wildlife, nature and the planet by taking a step back, renaming itself, and disassociating itself entirely from the king and his family.
Leave a Reply