Upon moving to the United States, an Aussie woman turned host huntress upon admitting that killing animals is “addictive.”
Mary Spooner O’Neill Phillips, originally from Sydney , Australia, now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and says she has always had a strong interest in the great outdoors.
Being from a farming background, Mary says she was instilled in her from a young age by her passion for healthy living and understanding where her food had come from. “I owned an archery bow in Australia and would shoot it down on my farm, but I never had anyone to take me to hunt,” she told the Mirror.
“When I moved to the USA and started to pursue my career in country music, I was suddenly surrounded by people who lived an outdoor lifestyle.”
As an adult she says she embraced hunting in a bid to avoid supermarket produce that was “toxin-filled.”
After her first kill, Mary claims she felt instantly connected to nature.
“I said a prayer and we took the bird back to the home, cleaned it, and ate it. I just remember thinking that there had been this whole way of life out there that I had been missing out on where you are living with nature and off the land, and connected to the earth. I was addicted from then on out,” she said.
Mary hunts deer, wild birds , fish and black bears have also been hunted.
While using the animal flesh for meat that can be used as steaks, sausages and tasty stews, Mary uses taxidermy and rugs to preserve the animal and make sure nothing goes to waste.
Although Mary maintains on having had a mostly positive reaction on social media, a recent photograph of a black bear that she killed received a rather negative reaction.
She received messages calling her a killer and asking how she could do such a thing, but Mary maintains her way of living sustainably ensures that the animal dies humanly.
“I have seen enough YouTube videos to know that their death is not always humane in an abattoir, and can be dragged out for days and hours. It’s really torturous for an animal to die that way. I think that’s the main reason why I love to hunt.”
“After the COVID crisis this year and supermarkets running out of stock and the meat markets getting shut down, I am more certain than ever that this is the lifestyle for me,” Mary explained.
“I had a freezer full of wild game when the pandemic broke out and was able to hunt turkeys so we didn‘t have to step into the supermarket much at all.”