Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lashed out at a United States “influencer” who posted a video of her snatching a wild baby wombat away from its frantic mother earlier this week.
The woman, Sam Jones, who refers to herself as an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter” was videoed picking up the tiny animal along the side of the road, running as fast as she could with the joey while it screamed for its mother, to the car as the mother wombat chased after her. The man filming the disturbing incident could be heard laughing at the mother wombat chasing after the woman.
The video has since been deleted, however the caption read:
my dream of holding a wombat has been realized! Baby and mom slowly waddled back off together in the bush. The baby was carefully held for one minute in total and then released back to mom.
According to the Wombat Protection Society, officials had been shocked to see the “mishandling” just for “social media likes.”
she then placed the vulnerable baby back into a country road – potentially putting it at risk of becoming roadkill.
Prime Minister Albanese suggested Jones do similar antics with animals that can actually fight back, and suggested she snatch a baby crocodile from its mother and see how that all works out.
Wombats are a legally protected species in the country. Jones may have broken the law since Australia only allows handling if the mother has died.
Immigration officials had been reviewing Jones’ visa following calls for her to be deported. After the backlash, Jones made her Instagram account private. On Friday, Sam Jones apologized on her Instagram account, while still claiming she picked up the baby wombat to keep it from getting hit on the road, stating that when she found the mother and joey, neither animal had been moving.
She has since left Australia and said her actions were “never from a place of harm or stealing a joey.”
Check out the video:
She also admitted, after her “deep reflection”, that she had not handled the situation very well, but insisted the filming of the scene was “never about social media or getting likes.”
You can read her entire apology on her Instagram page by clicking here.
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