The reality TV show contestant who killed and ate a rare bird while filming in New Zealand claimed that other contestants were “involved” in the scandal that got him booted from the competition.
“Other teams were aware and were present and involved in this whole thing,” 26-year-old Spencer “Corry” Jones, who appeared in the U.S. survival competition Race to Survive: New Zealand, told RealityTea in an interview published July 9—a day after the episode in which Jones was disqualified aired.
Jones, a river guide based in Wyoming, received an official warning from New Zealand’s Department of Conservation for hunting down a weka bird, a flightless and endangered species that is protected under New Zealand law. The TV crew was also put “on notice” over the incident, according to local reports.
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The game show contestant apologized for his actions when he was disqualified in the eighth episode of the show, which was filmed last fall, claiming, “We did have strategies in place for the racing, but we didn't prepare for the hunger,” and confessing that what he did “disrespected New Zealand.”
But Jones struck a different tone in his RealityTea interview, in which he appeared to suggest that other contestants weren’t entirely innocent of the bird-killing incident. “And now I’m a little bit pissed about it too,” Jones told the site.
Oliver Dev, a 29-year-old contestant who competed alongside Jones as his partner on the show, took it even further. He suggested that the other contestants were somehow behind the decision to cut them from the show because of the duo’s early success in the competition.
“I think that amount of money for some people can maybe change them when it’s dangled in front of their face… they see us constantly winning, you might sacrifice some of your values to get that money,” Dev told RealityTea. “I have a feeling that’s what happened.”
