Sam Barber ProfileSam Barber recently visited Alaska, and he’s received criticism after posting photos of a reindeer he hunted and killed.
Simply captioning the post “Alaska 2026,” the American singer-songwriter, who is heading to Australia for Strummingbird Festival next month, has been making waves in the country music scene. Now, it seems, some fans are unhappy with him sharing a key part of the country lifestyle, especially in the US: hunting.
“i love you sam but this isn’t right,” a fan wrote. Another added, “Animal was just tryna live its life sam. Sad stuff,” while someone else wrote that hunting is “gross.” Other fans described the photos as “disgusting,” and said they’d unfollowed him after seeing the post.
Fans also defended the singer. “Queue all the people that like country music cause its trendy right now judging the lifestyle that makes the music,” a comment reads.
Someone else quoted a passage of the bible, from Genesis 9:3. “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything,” they wrote.
Elsewhere, a fan said Barber was “harvesting” a reindeer, citing figures like 950,000 caribou “across 32 herds in Alaska” and 22,000 “legally harvested” annually for food. “This isn’t indiscriminate killing; it’s a regulated harvest and a normal part of wildlife management and food provision in Alaska,” they wrote.
Sam Barber isn’t the only country singer who’s received criticism for hunting. In recent weeks, people uncovered old photos of Ella Langley holding a reindeer she harvested – she’s previously publicly talked about growing up hunting with her father.
Meanwhile, Luke Combs has been open about hunting turkeys, Riley Green and Morgan Wallen hunt ducks, and Cody Johnson has a YouTube channel dedicated to “big-game hunting.”
Back in 2012, Blake Shelton posted photos of Miranda Lambert after she hunted a wild hog. Lambert then revealed that said wild hog ended up being her Thanksgiving dinner. Luke Bryan shared photos of himself hunting just weeks later.
Sam Barber toured across Australia last April and May; he returns in October and appears on the Ballarat leg of this year’s Strummingbird Festival line-up, added to the bill alongside Tyler Childers after Post Malone departed.
