Meet Valentine Thomas, a 28-year-old Canadian woman who has taken the Internet by storm in the last week. Thomas recently quit her job at a financial firm in London to pursue her love of spearfishing full-time. She often posts pictures of herself spearfishing on her popular Instagram page, which gained more than 10,000 followers in the last 48 hours. She has been dubbed by many publications as the “spearfishing huntress.”
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Thomas is a sustainable eating advocate, consuming everything she kills with family and friends. When she travels to remote places to fish, she often shares her bounty with local residents.
“I really encourage sustainable eating and spearfishing is definitely one of its purest forms in my opinion,” she said. “You catch exactly what you want to eat and there is no ‘collateral damages’ to it.”
Naturally, because of the types of pictures Thomas posts on social media, she receives a lot of attention, much of which is negative.
One of her pictures was recently shared on an Instagram account called Spear Sluts – a page featuring beautiful, bikini-clad women fishing.
Some question whether she actually catches the fish she poses with, suggesting her boyfriend is responsible.
‘It’s extremely rare to see women, actually,’ she said. ‘It’s really something quite different. It used to bother me – it definitely bothers my boyfriend. People don’t believe I can do things like this.’
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Thomas holds the world record for largest Atlantic Amberjack, spearing one off the shores of Ascension Island weighing 25 lbs. She has already filmed two documentaries for French TV and hopes to one day land a reality show.
