King Charles bans cats from his Sandringham estate

NEWS AND OPINION: The King owns a large estate around Sandringham which is in the south-east of England, near the Norfolk coast. Incidentally, the Royal family and the UK have far too many properties and it is a bit of an insult to the ordinary citizen in tough times to see the Royal family with so many palaces. Anyway that's another topic and I'll stick to this one which is that on the Sandringham estate there are houses which the King rents out to 'ordinary' people.

King Charles bans cats from his Sandringham estate. Image: MikeB

And I'm told that in all of these properties domestic cats are banned. He is one of those landlords that bans pet cats from his properties. I think the policy is short-sighted and unfair but apparently the rule came into play when his mother was the Queen, Elizabeth II, and it said that she might have been allergic to cats and preferred dogs. We know that she loved corgis. Dogs are allowed ('considered') on a house by house basis.

Perhaps the primary reason for this ban on domestic cats in these properties is that on the Sandringham estate they like to shoot birds. Another objectionable pastime as far as I am concerned. It's a game bird shooting estate of 20,000 acres.

And the Queen, it is said, was frightened that a pet cat would kill game bird chicks and upset the business. If that is true, it's probable that the gamekeepers advised her to ban cats from these properties to avoid any disruption to the business. 

Game bird shooting is big business in the UK but fraught, as far as I am concerned, with ethical problems and conservation issues. It also fraught with animal welfare and animal cruelty issues. 

The whole thing should be shut down but the Royal family is very much steeped in old-fashioned ways in the UK and they stick to those traditions religiously with little desire to modernise although King Charles has expressed a desire to slim down the Royal family which would be welcome to many people.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

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