With the internet firmly ingrained in our culture and everyday life, it is not surprising to hear or see an influencer or vlogger do some stunt or prank that gets them in trouble. However, when the stunt ends up involving a federally protected species in a foreign country, consequences are taken up a notch.
Sam Jones is an American influencer with around 100,000 followers on her Instagram (@samstrays_somewhere). She mainly specifies in outdoor exploration and adventure, with her describing herself as such. For the most part, her content mainly stays out of the view of legal governments, mainly sticking to hiking and sightseeing. In early March, however, she uploaded a video of herself running with a baby wombat in her arms towards her vehicle. The mother wombat can be seen in the background, shrieking.
This immediately resulted in an eruption of backlash not only within the country of Australia but also the international community as a whole. The Prime Minister of Australia even called Jones out and told her to try and pull a similar stunt again with something that can actually fight back and for her to see what happens. Immigration officials in Australia were quick to begin to review Jones’s visa with a large online gathering of people calling for her to be deported or imprisoned for her actions. The online petition to have her deported reached over 30,000 signatures of people worldwide.
Although the wombat is not an endangered species, it is still protected federally. The action of taking a wombat from their mother can be trauma inducing and deadly to both the mother and child. Jones said she put the wombat back down on the side of the road before leaving, but even this can be life threatening.
Jones has since made her accounts private and taken the video down, with her original Tik Tok being taken down permanently. She has also responded to a lot of the backlash, doubling down and standing firm by her point that she did nothing wrong and that the wombat child was safe the whole time, standing by the point that she would never do anything to endanger a wild animal for attention or do anything that might cause damage. Still, the backlash was strong, and Jones has reportedly received a large amount of death threats over this stunt, claiming so on a new Tik Tok account, along with a message describing how bad the backlash is and how overwhelmed she is.
A majority of people still wanted action taken, claiming that she has broken the law in disrupting and taking the child without any reason. An Australian law does state that a baby wombat may only be moved in the event that it needs help due to its mother dying. This is what would prompt the Immigration Officials to review Jones’s visa and investigate the case in the event that she would need to be detained or arrested. Overall, Jones hasn’t faced any punishment yet, with her even leaving Australia willingly at the end of the week, only a few days after the video went up. This soft victory still left many people upset who wanted to see more action being done to right the wrong they felt she had committed. With her accounts still private and most of her videos being filled with hate comments and dislikes it is clear that she has gotten the message and that this stain will not leave her and her content for good.
