Cody Johnson has sparked controversy with a new Instagram carousel showing him posing alongside a dead bear, with the images seemingly taken from a recent Alaska hunting trip.

The relationship between hunting and country has always been a slightly complicated one, with many artists growing up hunting with their parents, and then continuing with this hobby throughout their careers. However, some choose to do this in private, so as not to offend any listeners, while others are more open about their love of hunting, with artists like HARDY, Luke Combs, Koe Wetzel and Parker McCollum famously blasé about showing hunted animals on their socials.

While a handful of fellow artists have celebrated Johnson's new post, a number of fans have responded with disgust. One, for instance, shares, “I have to ask why we’re hunting bears…. Your music is so amazing but this… this is not okay. Hunting for food - okay. Hunting for sport - absolutely not”. Another replies, “This is really sad. Grizzlies are beautiful animals and part of Alaska. Why do you have to kill them?”

While country fans have grown somewhat accustomed to see dead deer and hogs on their social media feeds, it always seems to provoke a more visceral reaction that artists share pictures of less commonly hunted animals, such as bears and mountain lions.

This writer isn't particularly fond of hunting, especially trophy hunting, but at the same time, Johnson has never tried to hide his penchant for the so-called sport. He regularly posts from his hunting trips, and shared images from a mountain goat hunting expedition a few months back. He even has a dedicated YouTube hunting series.

The debate between the pro-hunting and anti-hunting camps will rage on, but the key element in this particular backlash is how it points towards a broader shift in country music.

Although artists didn't always have social media to broadcast their hunting trips, it was a generally accepted notion that many of the traditional-leaning country stars of decades past might go hunting here and there. It came with the territory - in the same way as golfing and driving a 4x4 is associated with the genre today.

But country's explosion in popularity with younger listeners in the 2020's means artists raises a dilemma when it comes to hunting. Traditionally, country music has primarily been enjoyed in rural areas of the US, and this is still the case. However, in recent years, urban and suburban listenership of the genre has vastly grown.

A 2023 Luminate report, for example, highlighted that younger suburban and urban listeners make up an increasingly significant portion of country fans. Gen-Z, Millenial and younger listeners make up over 50% of today's country music demographic. Similarly, country has become more global, with an Edison Research report highlighting how rapidly the genre's popularity is growing across the UK.

However, Gen-Z and Millenial generations are repeatedly shown to be more anti-hunting - especially trophy hunting - that older listeners. They are often cited as being more open to hunting for food and environment protection, but the overall attitude is reported to be a negative one. One report shows that hunting participation numbers have been steadily declining with each generation since the 1980s. The UK's attitude is, again, largely negative, with 92% reportedly opposing trophy hunting, partially because it is less prevalent across The Pond.

All this is to say that country music is reaching more and more fans that are less and less okay with hunting. We saw it a few years ago when HARDY posted a photo of a deer he'd hunted on Instagram, and it caused such a furore that he decided to put it in a song, ‘SOLD OUT’ (“Ain't afraid to throw a dead buck on my Instagram”).

One response to this concern about country's listenership becoming more diverse and less aligned with hunting, of course, is to simply say, ‘Who cares?’ And this is an approach that many artists will no doubt take, and we suspect CoJo is one of them.

But it doesn't diminish the fact that it's an important issue, particularly for up-and-coming artists seeking to cultivate a loyal fanbase. In today's personality-driven, TikTok-fuelled career-paths, all it takes is one post or comment that doesn't align with a certain demographic, and those listeners will feel less attuned to that artist.

And then, we reach a crossroads, where artists choose to either adjust their values - at least, their public values - to be more palatable to a wider audience, in the name of growth.

Or, they stick to their guns, which can turn a lot of casual listeners off, but at the same time, can lead to more traditional, pro-hunting fans championing them extra fervently.

So the backlash to Johnson's bear-hunting post doesn't really tell us anything particularly new about our 2026 ACM Entertainer of the Year - we've known he loves hunting for years.

But the level of outrage does point to a fascinating development in country music's journey, and its need to adapt and evolve to meet the demands of a more mainstream listenership. Perhaps artists are content with consolidating a loyal, but slightly smaller, group of fans that believe exactly what they believe. Or perhaps this falls into the same conversation that Luke Combs was having on The New York Times podcast, when he explained why he doesn't get involved in politics. Artists should make music, he suggests, and not impose their values on others.

In reality, it's rarely so simple, especially in a genre where so many lifestyle choices and beliefs seep into the lyrics. It's unclear at this point in which direction country music will head, and whether it would rather dig deeper trenches around Nashville or look outside the genre-walls and embrace more listeners. Either way, Johnson's seemingly inane post highlights a curious new challenge for the genre.

For more on Cody Johnson, see below: