Duggars Slammed as Son Jackson, 17, Poses With Dead Deer After Hunting: ‘Feel the Room’

The Duggars are facing backlash after sharing a photo of their 17-year-old son, Jackson Duggar, posing with a dead deer following a hunting trip.

“Jackson got a nice buck on Saturday, the opening day of gun season here in Arkansas!” read a new caption shared by the Duggar Family’s official Instagram page run by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar on Tuesday, November 16. “We’ve already enjoyed some of the meat from his harvest! Deer jerky is one of our favorites to make. Jackson is a good shot, and becoming a great cook, too!” 

Upon seeing the controversial photo, several social media users were divided over the post with a few expressing their outrage. “No congrats from me,” one fan commented with a crying emoji. “Graphic and cruel,” another replied, while a third chimed in, “Y’all need to take a minute off social media … feel the room!”

“I eat meat, so I’m not one to judge what anybody eats,” a fourth social media user wrote before explaining their take on why the hunting post garnered such an emotional response. “I also don’t think displaying a dead animal like some sort of prize is tasteful at all. But that’s just my opinion.”

Others defended the Duggars, citing that its currently “hunting season” and the bucks “won’t have enough food. There will be males fighting and [too] many jumping into roads,” one argued. “That’s why they have seasons.”

And Jackson isn’t the first member in the family to deal with a similar reaction. Jim Bob and Michelle’s daughter Joy-Anna Forsyth (née Duggar) and her husband, Austin Forsyth, have also faced backlash over their previous hunting photos. 

In November 2020, the couple shared portraits from their winter trip to Oklahoma, during which they proudly showed off the buck they harvested. 

At the time, Austin, 27, responded to the angry commenters who brought up the Bible verse “thou shall not kill,” according to CafeMom, to which he reportedly replied, “God was talking about people … Maybe [study] the Bible before you start quoting it?”

Prior to the latest hunting controversy, Jim Bob, 56, and Michelle, 55, shared rare photos of their older kids on November 14, showing them cherishing some family time, captioned, “Playing checkers and enjoying a beautiful day here in Northwest Arkansas while we wait for a table at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store after church!”