PIERS MORGAN: The sight of Kate and William feeding a baby rhino may be cute but when you consider that there are two stuffed ones sitting in Sandringham the hypocrisy makes my stomach churn 

Ahhhh, sweet photos, aren’t they?

The kind that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, giggling with joy as they fed a baby rhinoceros and elephant calf today on their trip to an Indian animal sanctuary.

It makes me sick: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge giggled with joy as they fed a baby rhinoceros and elephant calf today on their trip to an Indian animal sanctuary

Feeding elephants: A more positive image it would be hard to imagine, especially for a future king who has made the conservation of wildlife his cause célèbre

They were, we were told, ‘delighted’ to play parents to a group of vulnerable creatures being nursed back to health at the Kaziranga National Park after being injured or orphaned in the wild.

A more positive image it would be hard to imagine, especially for a future king who has made the conservation of wildlife his cause célèbre.

So why does it make me feel sick to the very pit of my stomach?

Well, perhaps it’s because Prince William likes rich people hunting down these same beautiful animals, killing them in often elongated torture sessions, posing for repulsively smug photos next to their rotting carcasses, and then severing their heads for their office walls back home.

That’s why.

We know this because he said so only last month.

Speaking to ITV News, he openly supported trophy-hunters, saying: ‘There’s a place for commercial hunting. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea…but if somebody out there wants to pay money – and it wouldn’t be me – but if somebody did, then it is a justifiable means of conserving species that are under serious threat.’

Hmmm, really Your Royal Highness?

A photo emerged in 2014 of Prince Harry posing proudly with a one-ton water buffalo he had downed during a gap year trip to Africa a decade ago

We saw exactly what these trophy-hunters are like last summer with the case of Cecil the ageing lion and Dr Walter Palmer, an American dentist from Minnesota.

He paid $50,000 to fly thousands of miles into the Zimbabwe bush to illegally lure poor Cecil from his compound and try to kill him with a bow-and-arrow.

Only Cecil didn’t die immediately. Instead, he stumbled off, wounded and bloodied, for 40 hours before Dr Palmer and his group finally caught up with him and shot him dead.

Then they beheaded Cecil, skinned him, and left the rest of his body lying outside the park where he lives.

Further investigation of Dr Palmer’s work revealed photos of his smirking face next to dead leopards, tigers, rhinos, bison, elks and anything else that might look good in his snuff trophy cabinet.

Which brings me back to Prince William, the self-appointed ‘face’ of global wildlife conservation.

He thinks this is absolutely fine.

Shot dead: We saw exactly what these trophy-hunters are like last summer with the case of Cecil the ageing lion (pictured) and Dr Walter Palmer, an American dentist from Minnesota

I mean, HE wouldn’t pay the money to do it, as he clarified, but then I doubt William has to pay for almost anything these days. That’s one of the benefits of being the future King of England.

Murderous thug: Dr Palmer with a dead leopard

But he has no problem with murderous thugs like Dr Walter Palmer doing it. In fact, he actively encourages them to.

This is hardly surprising given that the British royal family has killed more animals than probably any other family in the world, mostly in the name of ‘sport’.

Their palatial homes are packed full of their hunting ‘trophies’.

At Sandringham alone, the Queen’s home in Norfolk where the family gathers each Christmas, there are 62 stuffed animals including two rare rhinos, a leopard, an Indian tiger, the tusks of an elephant and two lions.

Leader of the current royal trophy-hunting pack is William’s grandfather Prince Philip whose whole life has been spent hunting animals around the world.

In 1961, on a trip with the Queen to India he sparked an international furore by killing a tiger, a crocodile and six urials, a type of mountain sheep.

Yet hilariously, Philip remains ‘President Emeritus’ of the World Wildlife Fund, seeing no contradiction between his 90-year lust for killing animals with his supposed desire for saving animal life.

His grandson has inherited the same bizarrely inconsistent traits.

Two years ago William was caught shooting deer and wild boar in Spain, days before taking part in a high-profile campaign to highlight the perils of illegal wildlife poaching.

A few months later, a photo emerged of his brother Prince Harry posing proudly with a one-ton water buffalo he had downed during a gap year trip to Africa a decade ago.

Harry these days likes to pose for rather different pictures of himself lying across sedated elephants, while informing us that the slaughter of animals like these is a ‘pointless waste of beauty.’

Protesters criticise the hunting of Cecil the lion in the car park of Dr Palmer's clinic in Minnesota last July

He and William, like so many supporters of trophy-hunting, would have us believe that it’s essential to bringing money to countries that desperately need it to conserve wildlife.

This fatuous argument reminds me of the NRA’s adage that the only way to stop gun violence is with more guns.

The truth is that far more money comes in for conserving wildlife from tourists who want to see these great beasts free in their natural habit than ever comes from trophy-hunting.

And much of the trophy-hunting revenue is ‘lost’ anyway to corrupt politicians.

It’s a repellent, invidious, loathsome pastime that should have been outlawed a long time ago.

There’s simply no justification for encouraging rich tycoons to obliterate animals for large sums of cash just so they can add to their slaughter-selfie collection and snuff trophy cabinet.

The fact Prince William continues to do so whilst simultaneously cuddling baby rhinos and elephants makes him look either laughably unaware or deeply cynical.

Collection: At Sandringham, the Queen’s home in Norfolk where the family gathers each Christmas, there are 62 stuffed animals including two rare rhinos, a leopard, an Indian tiger, the tusks of an elephant and two lions

There’s a precedent for how to handle this kind of problem.

Three years ago, ex-King Juan Carlos of Spain was stripped of his position as honorary president of the Spanish World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) the moment it emerged he had been illicitly elephant hunting in Botswana.

‘Although this type of hunting is legal and regulated, it has been deemed incompatible by many members with the honorary presidency of an international organisation that defends wildlife and the environment like WWF,’ they said in a statement.

Well, quite.

To my mind, it has become equally incompatible for Prince William to continue in his dual roles as Conservation King and Trophy-Hunter Champion.

At the moment it seems akin to putting a fox in charge of the hen-coop.

Find another cause, Sir, one that doesn’t make you look such a flaming hypocrite.