The US influencer who sparked outrage when she ripped a wild baby wombat away from its distressed mother for a social media video is having her visa reviewed by the Australian government.
Australia’s Minister for Immigration Tony Burke said the department is reviewing the video of Samantha Jones, also known as @samstrays_somewhere on Instagram, to see if her stunt violated the country’s wildlife laws, News.com.au reported.
“The department is now working through the conditions on her current visa and determining whether immigration law has been breached,” Burke said in a statement on Thursday.
Burke said the level of “scrutiny” Jones has faced over the video may be enough to keep her from returning to the Land Down Under.
“Either way, given the level of scrutiny that will happen if she ever applies for a visa again, I’ll be surprised if she even bothers,” the upset immigration minister said.
“I can’t wait for Australia to see the back of this individual, I don’t expect she will return.”
In the now-deleted video that she posted to her more than 92,000 followers on Instagram, Jones snatched up the baby wombat on the side of the road in the middle of the night while the man filming her is heard laughing.
As she runs toward the camera carrying the defenseless wombat, whose legs are dangling freely, its mother pops into view to chase after its baby.
“Look at the mother, it’s chasing after her!” the man says while laughing hysterically.
The video then cuts to her holding the baby wombat as it screams in fear.
“Okay, mama is right there, and she is pissed, let’s let him go,” she said before the video ends.
Jones wrote in the video’s caption that “the baby and mum were safely united.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong also called out the hunting influencer for her cruel video.
“It looked pretty dreadful, didn’t it? I will leave those sorts of questions [about whether the influencer should be deported] to Tony Burke and to the authorities, but, really, leave the wombat alone,” Wong said.
“I think everyone who would have seen that would have thought, leave the baby wombat alone. Leave it with its mum.”
An online petition calling for her deportation from Australia has received more than 13,000 signatures as of Thursday.
It’s unclear if Jones has fled the country following the backlash from the video.
However, though the influencer may have believed it was a harmless stunt for a video, the Australian Wildlife Rescue Agency WIRES said the act is illegal, News.com.au reported.
WIRES Wildlife Vet Dr. Tania Bishop told the news outlet that the baby wombat looked about eight months old, and at an age where it would rely on its mother for protection “at all times.”
“You can see the joey swinging, but it’s also hissing and crying out, which is a sign of extreme distress,” Bishop said.
“You can also see the extreme distress the mother is in, chasing her across the road.”
Penalties for animal cruelty offenses vary by state in Australia. Some fines reach as high as $14000 for individuals and $157,00 for corporations. Offenses can also carry with them a potential seven year prison sentence, according to the RSPCA.
The Montana-based influencer has since turned her public Instagram and TikTok accounts private following the backlash.
Jones, who claims to be a “wildlife biologist and environmental scientist,” did address the backlash in the Instagram comments before deleting the video, according to News.com.au.
“For everyone that’s worried and unhappy, the baby was carefully held for ONE minute in total and then released back to mum. They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed,” she wrote.
“I didn’t think I would be able to catch it in the first place, and took an opportunity to appreciate a really incredible animal up close. I don’t ever capture wildlife that will be harmed by my doing so.”
With Post wires
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