An American influencer has drawn criticism from animal welfare advocates after posting footage of herself capturing a wild baby wombat and holding it for the camera.
Sam Jones, who describes herself on social media as a “wildlife biologist and environmental scientist”, shared the video in a since-deleted Instagram reel.
It shows Ms Jones catching the joey on the side of an unidentified road and carrying it to a car, while a man laughs as he films.
Another wombat the pair identifies as the joey’s mother is seen chasing after the baby and hanging around the car while the joey hisses and screeches.
After a few moments, Ms Jones lets go of the baby, but the filming cuts out before it is known whether the animals are reunited.
A caption that originally accompanied the clip indicated they were. “Baby and mom slowly waddled back off together into the bush,” it said.
WIRES wildlife veterinarian Tania Bishop says the fundamental issue with this incident was the potential for severe distress being caused to both the mother and joey.
“That was a completely dependent joey on the mum. It’s at her side all the time for both milk and protection,” Dr Bishop told the ABC.
“Also, the way she [Ms Jones] picked up the joey by the forearms very easily could have caused damage to the muscles, tendons, nerves, shoulders and upper arms.
“It’s very distressing because we didn’t get to see whether the joey was OK afterwards or whether there was any sort of permanent damage.”
The RSPCA says Australian native animals should never be handled in the wild. (ABC North QLD: Chloe Chomicki)
Wombat Protection Society director Jen Mattingley said Ms Jones put everyone in the situation at risk.
“Normally wombats move pretty quickly so it’s surprising she was able to pick it up, unless something was wrong with it like early stages of mange or illness, but you can’t see clearly enough from the video,” Ms Mattingley told the ABC.
“She was so silly to do something like this for her safety and the welfare of both wombats.”
Ms Mattingley said if it was the case that the mother and baby both had mange — a disease that is fatal without treatment — Ms Jones should reveal the location of her encounter to arrange help for the animals.
Dr Bishop and Ms Mattingley said the animals in the video appeared to be common hairy-nosed wombats.
The ABC contacted Ms Jones for comment via Instagram, however she did not respond before publication.
In since-deleted comments on the post, Ms Jones said “the baby was carefully held for one minute in total and then released back to mom”.
“They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed,” she wrote.
“I don’t ever capture wildlife that will be harmed by my doing so.”
Yolandi Vermaak, who runs a not-for-profit wombat rescue organisation, said on Instagram that Ms Jones “utterly disrespected Australians and our beautiful wildlife”.
“Why anyone would think it’s OK and even funny to inflict such terror on a baby animal and its mum is absolutely beyond me,” she wrote.
“I am so angry.”
RSPCA senior scientific officer Di Evans also said the video showed a “blatant disrespect” towards Australia’s native wildlife.
“The distress caused by the callous act is obvious, with the joey screeching for their mother and the mother being extremely anxious,”
Dr Evans said.
“Any separation is harmful and the video shows this strong maternal bond.”
The RSPCA said it would not make any further comments so as not to interfere with potential inquiries by authorities.
In other videos and photos posted to Ms Jones’s Instagram page, she is also seen picking up a wild echidna, a hedgehog, and pulling a baby shark out of a rock pool.
The ABC was unable to confirm when or where those videos were filmed.
It is illegal to harm Australia’s native wildlife. (Supplied: Chaz Taylor)
Mother wombats ‘very protective’
Dr Bishop said she was concerned what might have happened to the adult animal to make it turn around during an edited part of the video, saying wombat mothers were “very protective of their young”.
“A wombat mum is not going to be easily turned around, so I’m worried about that,” she said.
“Most likely, the mum hopefully would have stayed around the area, so I very much hope they were reunited.
“But we don’t really know if this happened.”
Is it illegal to hold a wombat in Australia?
Potentially in this case.
Dr Bishop said that under the Environmental and Biosecurity Protection Act 1999, it was illegal to harm or take any native wildlife in Australia.
“The only time there’s legal reason to do anything like that is if there’s a dead mother and somebody has a reasonable idea that a joey is in need of help or assistance,” she said.
“But in this circumstance, there was no legal justification for her to do that.
“It’s a beautiful experience to just watch our wildlife in the wild. There’s no need to interact with them in that way.”
