Sporting Prince William shoots his first stag ~Caroline Davies
PRINCE William has shot his first stag on a stalking beat at the Queen's Balmoral estate. The kill will have delighted the 14-year-old Prince, who has displayed a keen enthusiasm for shooting in recent years. He took the stag last month on the Spittal, at the western end of Loch Muick and below the hill known as Broad Cairn.
He and his brother, Prince Harry, had flown to Balmoral on Oct 18 for a weekend of deer stalking with the Prince of Wales. The Spittal is a favourite haunt of the Royal Family. The Queen has stalked in the area and the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles still do so regularly.
After the kill, the stag was "gralloched" - disembowelled - by an experienced stalker accompanying the party. This involves the removal of entrails, both to prevent the carcass bloating and to make the animal lighter to drag down the hill.
The carcass would then have been cleaned and hung and, if requested, the antlers removed and given to the Prince as a trophy. Traditionally, a person shooting his or her first stag would be "blooded" - smeared on the face with blood from the kill. It was unclear, however, whether Prince William indulged in this practice, which is now frowned on by some members of the shooting fraternity as being too bloodthirsty.
The Prince's interest in shooting has been encouraged by his father and by Tiggy Legge-Bourke, the Prince of Wales's assistant with responsibility for looking after his sons. Miss Legge-Bourke, 30, is reputed to be a good shot and herself shot an 18-stone stag at Balmoral last year. She has often helped the boys to practise shooting by targeting rabbits and crows. But recently Prince William has paid many visits to Sandringham, where he enjoys shooting pheasant.
His enthusiasm is such that he is expected not to go skiing with his father and brother at Klosters in the New Year, in favour of joining other relatives for shooting at Sandringham. His father's attempts to interest him in foxhunting, however, have not been so successful. He appears not to be as interested in horses, preferring to spend hours crawling through bracken with a deer rifle in his hand. Balmoral has a culling policy, which means that old and infirm stags and hinds are regularly shot. The deer has no natural predators and old deer lose teeth and can starve to death.
The number of deer on the Scottish hills is now estimated to be 300,000, double the number the estates say they can sustain.
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