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Remember that cute deer story from a couple weeks ago about the guy who became best friends with a deer named Money? Yeah, this is the opposite of that.
Johny Yuile is a New Zealand dude who loves to go hunting with his daughter. I’ll set aside my personal aversion to hunting on this one and just say that it’s almost always a good thing to get some quality bonding time in with your kid. If all Yuile and his daughter did was kill a deer, I (and the rest of the internet) would probably not care in the slightest.
Instead, they did this:
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Source: www.nydailynews.com
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In a post that quickly went viral, Yuile shared a picture of himself and his daughter wearing duck calls on their necks and standing over a fresh kill… and a picture of his daughter biting into the deer’s “warm quivering heart.” In case you’re an alien reading this, it’s the second one that’s freaking people out.
Facebook removed the post, as well as the NZ Woman Hunters Facebook page to which it was shared. (Facebook has yet to comment officially on the matter, but ostensibly it’s because of its general prohibition on whatever it considers to be a “graphic image”; according to its Community Standards page, it removes “graphic images when they are shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence.”
Yuile’s post sharply divided the internet. For every person who’s concerned that maybe a child without a fully-developed immune system shouldn’t be eating raw red meat, there’s a freaked-out vegan and a dozen people lumping the first two groups into one.
Personally, I have no problem with a kid eating a deer’s heart. In a weird way, it’s a sign of respect: Yuile and his daughter are making it clear that they’re consuming the animal, not just hunting for sport. I’ve eaten my share of hearts, heads, and innards over the years, and I don’t take offense to someone passing on those values to the next generation.
But.
Eating it raw? No way. Pulling it out of a warm carcass and biting into it when you have no idea what that stag was living with is a big no-no even for an adult. Do you want your kid to get food poisoning and/or parasites? Because that’s how that happens.
Yuile has told both New Zealand and international news sources that he’s zero percent ashamed of doing what he did. I can’t help but wonder if he’d feel the same way if his daughter had gotten sick.
What do you think? Is eating a deer’s heart ever okay, cooked or raw? Let us know in the comments below or @WhatsTrending on Twitter!
