WARNING GRAPHIC: People Outraged Over 8-Year-Old Eating Heart from First Deer Harvest OutdoorHub Editor: Keenan Crow 08.24.16



A New Zealand hunter has come under fire after submitting photos of his 8-year-old daughter eating the heart of her first kill.

In his submission, Johny says he is a proud dad and that his daughter successfully shot and killed a young stag using his shoulder as a leaning rest last weekend.

It’s a tradition that is thrown around the hunting community, but not many partake in this so called “ritual.”

Johny’s post reads, “check out my little pink ninja princess Chloe (8) with her fist deer a young stag. Shot in a bush block on a friends’ farm last weekend. She made tricky downhill shot using my shoulder as a leaning rest and shot with dads 7mm-08 at about 40m. Then she took a bite from its warm quivering heart, Go Chloe!!”

The submission to the New Zealand Woman Hunters page has since picked up almost 20,000 shares as the comments section filled with people criticizing Johny’s parenting and saying that biting the heat was “sadistic” and psychopathic.

From Johny’s perspective, Chloe had been hunting with him since she was eight months old on a front pack. This was her first deer.

Johny said that the negative response didn’t bother him. “I’d quote the saying, ‘Lions do not care of the opinions of sheep.’ She wanted to do it when she saw a picture of her uncle biting the heart of his first deer.”

“We’re not too serious about it; it’s something some hunters do with the first kill. I wouldn’t say it is ritualistic, but she is a hunter now.”

If we’ve learned one thing over the past week, it’s that controversial stuff like this gets viewed by EVERYBODY. Hunting videos, and pictures get around fast, especially the ones that could be viewed as controversial by some. The people who are against hunting are looking to pounce at any opportunity we, the hunters, give them. We have to be cognizant of the fact that many people are not familiar with harvesting their own food and that a trip to the grocery store meat department might be the closest thing to hunting they have ever done.