Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts

Friday 8 August 2008, by Webmaster

Former Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Eliza Dushku has upset animal rights activists in America after revealing she hunts elk and deer.

The actress proudly showed off her bow and arrow skills on late-night chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday and boasted about killing a deer in Oklahoma last Christmas.

She also revealed she was hunting for elk in Colorado when she landed her role in upcoming TV series Dollhouse.

Realising the studio audience had turned on her over her Bambi-killing antics, Dushku joked, "My mother called me herself and said, ’You’re a liberal from New England, what the ’f’ are you doing in Oklahoma shooting things."

And when Kimmel took the actress to task for her hunting boasts, she defended her actions by stating, "When you’re in a relationship with somebody you have to, like, experience things that they do."

She added, "A lot of people eat meat... and I eat what I kill."

Dushku’s remarks have angered People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activists, who insist the actress should put down her bow and stop hunting.

A spokeswoman for the organisation says, "Slaying bloodthirsty vampires on Buffy is brave, but slaying innocent animals where they live and raise their families is cowardly and cruel.

"Eliza is sorely out of step with the rest of the country; 95 per cent of Americans oppose hunting."

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6 Forum messages

Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts
9 August 00:49

The headline is not correct. PETA does not represent "animal lovers". I love animals. Our pets have our love and affection. PETA is a radical pressure group that thinks that people like ME (who keep and care for our furry companions and friends) have a "selfish desire to possess animals" which "causes immeasurable suffering" (that’s off their own web site). Please don’t confuse them with me.

If you get out of the isolation of big cities and into the the real world with real mountains and real wildlife, hunting is normal. The recovery of wildlife populations is promoted and funded by hunters. They’re the ones bringing back the wildlife, not PETA. PETA just wants your money along with political pull. (And, in the wild animals hunt animals, and last I checked evolution suggests that humans are animals.)

I’m glad to see an actress that’s not bow-ing (pun intended) to pressure groups. Articles like these make me want to go down to the sportsman’s shop and have them send a bouquet of arrows to Ms. Dushku.

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Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts
9 August 03:44, by DurangoKid

Give me a break! Innocent? Isn’t that a human judgement? Humans evolved for hundreds of thousands of years eating meat either as carrion or game. It’s who we are. It’s our heritage as omnivores. Is there anything more back to nature than getting up close and personal with what you eat? And Eliza eats what she bags. Good for her.

By the way, herds of elk and deer need to be managed for their own good as a species. Like it or not humans need to take up the slack for the lack of predators. And bullets kill a lot faster than wolves. PETA does have the right to make their opinion heard. We also have the right to ignore it.

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Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts
9 August 03:50, by DurangoKid

And furthermore, Bambi is an urban myth, a cartoon. It’s not biology or ecology. It’s a movie that flatters its audience in order to sell tickets. It also serves to alienate humans from the wild world and our wild selves.
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Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts
9 August 14:44, by Rich L.

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. As I listened to Eliza tell her story about hunting, and then she mentions she hunted on Christmas, I thought to myself immediately, "This is going to open up a can of worms", and obviously it did.

As a man, I did not personally frown upon what Eliza said, in fact, her comment about experiencing things with her new boyfriend, things he likes to do, is exactly what relationships are about. You should anyway experience each others lives, how else will you know if you’re gonna get along unless your significant other shares their hobbies with you.

On the other hand, she could have said no to the invitation or she could have just stayed in the hotel while her boyfriend and his friends hunted. Or gone shopping.

On top of it, hunting with a bow is unusually cruel. What’s next, boar hunting with a large knife? Still, she did say she eats what she kills and that probably makes all the difference in the world. I don’t personally eat deer but if Eliza does, then God bless her and God bless her for her honesty in telling the country wait she had done. But on Christmas?

She killed Bambi on Christmas.....just kidding. I think she is still cool and she is absolutely beautiful, my how she has gotten prettier since her Buffy days...damn.

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- Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts 13 August 04:14
  
  Hunting with a bow is unusually cruel? How is it any more or less cruel than with a gun? A good shot with a bow and arrow will kill just as quickly and painlessly as a good shot with a gun.
  
  95% of the country definitely doesn’t oppose hunting. That’s more likely the proportion of the country that doesn’t go hunting, for whatever reason.
  
  I’d hope that most people are smart enough to realize that hunting is a part of nature and as was mentioned earlier is crucial to keeping deer populations at healthy levels. I’d rather have Eliza (or anyone) legally hunting rather than allowing the deer and elk populations to grow beyond what can be sustained and then have many more animals suffer lingering deaths from starvation, disease and cold in the winter.
  
  Too many people allow their emotions to rule them. There’s nothing wrong with feeling an emotional response when hearing about an animal being shot, but not allowing properly managed hunts results in a lot more pain and suffering for those cute little Bambis.
  
  I love animals, but they have their place in the world, and part of that place is being eaten by those higher on the food chain (whether human or otherwise). Harvesting grains and vegetables result in the deaths of tens of millions of animals every year. Should people stop eating altogether, then?
  
  Kudos to Eliza for being a responsible hunter. There’s nothing for her to be ashamed of in her hunting.
  
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Eliza Dushku upsets Animal Lovers with Hunting Boasts
11 August 22:59, by Talia

There’s a difference between people who hunt just to get ’trophies’ out of it, and people who always eat what they kill. Um, if you’re not a vegetarian, you might as well be a hunter, because animals are killed to feed YOU. I saw Eliza at Comic-Con, and she made it explicit that she always eats what she kills. It’s not just for sport. These people sound so vehement in their proclamations it’s almost like anyone who isn’t a vegan is going to hell. Yes, it may seem sad, deer, elk dying. BUT...If they saw Eliza eating venison in a restaurant they wouldn’t go up to her and yell at her about her cruelty towards animals. So, really, what’s the difference? And actually, if you take into consideration how horribly some animals are slaughtered for food that makes it into restaurants, it’s probably a whole lot healthier AND more ethical to shoot it yourself. Lay off!
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