A French Instagram model and hunting advocate has reportedly had to change her last name after receiving death threats for her work supporting outdoor and shooting sports.
Johanna Clermont is a 23-year-old hunter, college student, and Instagram influencer who garnered attention in Paris recently after becoming the face of an ad campaign by a French pro-hunting streaming service called Zone300. Dubbed the “hunting Netflix,” the service offers shows highlighting boar hunting, deer hunting, and fishing.
“I know. It may be surprising to see a young blonde like me. But I want to break the stereotypes,” she told The Telegraph.
She said the death threats she has received have come from anti-hunting militants at Perpignan University in southern France, where she studies. They targeted her after Paris’s metro system was plastered with billboards by Zone300 depicting her face beside the text “Sweep Away Your Prejudice!”
“P—ing people off is my second passion,” she said. “If there are no negative reactions, then the campaign won’t have worked.”
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France boasts about 1.2 million hunters among the country’s 67 million-person population, but not all of them are cheering Clermont’s newfound fame.
Martine Pion is the president of the National Association of Female Hunting and she accused the model and hunter of selling her soul to merchandising, according to The Telegraph.
“We don’t share the same way of seeing things. To be a spokesmodel and remain independent seem difficult to me,” she said. “So, the guys find her pretty, fine. I’m perhaps gullible but our cause is not about looks.”
The anti-hunting crowd has also criticized her for using her looks to misrepresent the hunting community.
“Johanna is the dream face for hunters,” said Pierre Rigaux, an anti-hunting wildlife activist. “Young and a woman very far from the reality of the hunter” in the male-dominated sport.
Clermont describes herself as a “French entrepreneur, proud huntress” on her 125,000-follower Instagram account. In one recent post highlighting her ad campaign with Zone300, she defended hunting as a normal human activity.
“Hunting is a normal activity which defines us as humans -participating to the normal life/death cycle,” she said. “While anti-speciesism is turning trendy, hunters image is deteriorating: we will not let them do. Common sense always ends up winning. Be proud to be who you are.”
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Clermont’s advocacy comes as France continues to grapple with its increasing wild boar population. Hunters and farmers have been at odds about how to deal with the problem, and some of the animals appear to be getting a little too comfortable around humans.