Prince Harry has revealed his controversial pastime he previously practised in Scotland but was forced to give up due to Meghan Markle's disapproval.
The Royal Family are known to spend their summer holidays at their beloved Balmoral Estate in Aberdeenshire which is where Harry was first introduced to the traditional royal sport of hunting.
The Duke of Sussex was just 15 when he stalked and killed his first deer on the Scottish estate and distinctively remembers his first 'blooding', which is an informal initiation ceremony in which someone's face is smeared with the blood of the first deer they have killed.
Recalling the memory in his memoir Spare, he explained how their guide, Sandy, had pushed his head inside the animal's carcass after Harry shot the deer.
He penned: "I tried to pull away, but Sandy pushed me deeper. I was shocked by his insane strength. And by the infernal smell. My breakfast jumped up from my stomach."
He justified his actions as he said: "Managing their numbers meant saving the deer population as a whole, ensuring they’d have enough food for winter. Finally, I'd been good to the community.
"A big stag in the larder meant plenty of good meat for those living around Balmoral. These virtues had been preached to me from an early age, but now I'd lived them, and felt them on my face. I wasn't religious, but this 'blood facial' was, to me, baptismal."
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The Royal Family's love for hunting dates back centuries with it being a long-running tradition at Balmoral alongside the annual Boxing Day shoot at Sandringham.
However, new rules came into place in September 2023 bringing an end to more than 170 years of tradition as the royals can no longer go hunting, deer stalking or fishing at the five-century-old Abergeldie Estate.
Prince Harry's hunting days were over well before then as his wife Meghan Markle made it known that she is not a fan of the gruesome activity and the duke reportedly sold his prized handmade hunting rifles for around £50,000 (about $61,000).
British primatologist Jane Goodall, who is a close friend of the Sussexes, previously said in an interview with the Radio Times in 2020 that Harry and Prince William were champions of the natural world "except they hunt and shoot".
She added: "But I think Harry will stop because Meghan doesn't like hunting, so I suspect that is over for him."
In an interview with The Telegraph in 2023, Harry implied that his own two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet will likely not follow in his footsteps when it comes to blood sports.
He said: "It's interesting because so many of those moments have made me the man I am today. Would I encourage Archie to stick his head inside a carcass? Probably not."
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