Influencer's Wielding of Wild Wombat Incurs Wrath of a Nation

New York Times

14-03-2025

In times of tumult and uncertainty, a society can come together over resounding, unequivocal disdain against a common villain.
This week, Australia, which is gearing up for a divisive election, found that antagonist in an American social media influencer. The woman — known as 'Sam Jones' from Montana on Instagram — snatched a baby wombat from near its mother at night from the side of what appeared to be a remote road. Then she ran back to her vehicle and held the marsupial up for a camera, as it wriggled and squealed.
'Mama's right there, and she's pissed,' the woman said in a video posted online. She went on to release the joey on the roadside in the darkness, illuminated only by her car's headlights.
Australia's prime minister, Anthony Albanese, suggested that she try the same with a crocodile and see how that goes. 'To take a baby wombat from its mother, and clearly causing distress from the mother is just an outrage,' Mr. Albanese said.
The indignation was bipartisan: Asked about the video by a reporter, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, called it 'a cruel act.'
The minister for home affairs, Tony Burke, said officials would review the woman's visa to see if any immigration laws had been breached, and that any future applications from her would receive intense scrutiny. The government did not release her name but Australian news media identified her as Samantha Strable.
The drumbeat of criticism included calls to deport the woman. On Friday morning, ABC Australia, the national broadcaster, sent out a news alert saying she had left Australia.
The Wombat Protection Society of Australia denounced the video, explaining that human interaction could cause 'severe stress' to wombats, and that it wasn't clear from the short clip whether the animal had been reunited with its mother.
'A baby of this size is highly dependent on its mother, and prolonged separation could have fatal consequences,' the group said in a statement.
The influencer's account, which describes her as an outdoor enthusiast and hunter, has been made private. An older video of her holding an echidna, another animal unique to Australia, drew further criticism.
An apology was posted in a newly created account on TikTok under a similar username.
'I'm really sorry about the wombat incident,' she wrote. 'It was a mistake.'
In a subsequent post she said that she was getting hundreds of death threats for having picked up the animal. She did not respond to requests for comment.
In an email, Mark Heinz, a reporter for the Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily, said he believed the woman in question was indeed Ms. Strable, whom he had interviewed in 2023 about her enthusiasm for hunting.
Ms. Strable responded to his attempt to reach her this week only by saying she would have an official statement forthcoming, Mr. Heinz said.
In the interview with Mr. Heinz, Ms. Strable, then a resident of Pinedale, Wyo., recounted her adventures of having hunted red stag in Chile with a bow and killed pigs and wallabies in New Zealand. She said that she was next attempting to trap a Wyoming black bear. She described herself as a wildlife biologist who works seasonally, and spends winter months in the southern hemisphere.
Detailing her pig hunting experience in New Zealand, in which dogs corner wild pigs allowing for the hunter to plunge a knife into the animal's heart, she said it was 'intense.'
'Honestly, I cried,' she said in the interview. 'I don't like killing. I like the hunting, I like the chase. It's not fun to see anything die.'