shoot, shovel and shut up
v. phr.— «Worse, the law may actually speed up extinctions. Farmers have an incentive to destroy protected species before the biologists find them—a practice known as “shoot, shovel and shut up.”» —“The overcrowded ark” in Los Angeles Economist (United Kingdom) Sept. 6, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If someone’s extremely annoyed or frustrated, you describe them with the idiomatic expression they’re fit to be tied. But where did this saying come from? This is part of a complete episode.
Related
A listener named Tami contacted the show by WhatsApp to say that whenever someone would be talking about a subject that nobody else knew anything about, her father-in-law would respond with I had one of those, but the wheels came off. This is part...