Australian Survivor ‘hero’ Paige Donald has been exposed as a trophy hunter of wild animals by her co-star Rogue Rubin.
Warning: graphic images.
After her elimination episode aired on Survivor: Heroes vs Villains on Sunday, Rogue shared a photo of co-star Paige Donald posing next to a dead antelope with a gun, that she had posted on her IG grid a while ago.
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“She is a BIG game trophy hunter. Not a cattle girl. No HERO [sic] kills for pleasure,” Rogue wrote alongside the screenshot. She added, “I do not want to be anywhere with proud big game trophy hunters who kill for “pleasure”.
Rogue has numerous photos on her Instagram showing her posing next to animals she’s killed. The animals include a kangaroo, pigs, multiple dingoes, and a warthog. In one of the videos, Rogue can be heard laughing and cheering as her pet dogs viciously kill a group of pigs.
After Rogue exposed Paige over her trophy hunting, Survivor fans slammed the latter and questioned why she was part of the heroes tribe.
“Paige Donald, a contestant on @Survivor_AU is a professional shooter of our iconic kangaroos, & trophy hunter. @Channel10AU why would you select such a horrid human to put on Survivor? I love this show, but I can no longer watch it it in good conscience, as a wildlife rescuer,” one fan wrote.
Paige has since taken to her Instagram to defend her choice to trophy hunter, and to say that she will continue to do it.
“I just wanted to shut this down because you’re lucky I’ve got thick skin, mate. The amount of death threats and messages and disgusting comments I’ve gotten all over my social media is absolutely disgusting,” Paige began.
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Part way through, Paige said that the reason she trophy hunts is in order to save “innocent” animals.
“You’re damn sure right that I will be going back one day. The money spent on the animal your shooting goes back into other [conservation] into the animal and into the place to keep them safe,” she said.
“I live in a world with animals that are sick and need to be shot. I do hunt, yes. Pigs are a massive damage to the land, to calves [and] lambs. They’re a very aggressive pest and so are wild dogs,” Paige said.
“Wild dogs chew lambs to frigging pieces and calves to pieces while leaving them alive while eating their guts out.”
“I’ve seen some horrible things that dingos and wild dogs have done to cattle, sheep and native species because dingoes aren’t a native species. They came over on boats so you need to get your facts straight there”.
Rogue has since reponded to Paige’s video, saying “Please let me explain explain trophy hunting – I researched it for ten years. No money from trophy hunting goes into conservation – that is a fact proven by economists”.
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