An American influencer has been slammed after she was filmed grabbing a wild baby wombat and temporarily separating it from its distressed mother.
Outdoor enthusiast and hunter Samantha Jo Strable shared the since-deleted video to her Instagram account on Tuesday.
Ms Strable, who describes herself as a ‘wildlife biologist and environmental scientist’, captured the juvenile wombat from the side of an unidentified road.
The footage showed Ms Strable running towards her car with the joey swinging in her arms.
Its mother was seen desperately chasing Ms Strable while an Australian man laughed as he filmed the scene.
‘I caught a baby wombat,’ Ms Strable said as the joey shrieked and wiggled trying to free itself from her grasp.
‘Okay, mum is right there and she is pissed.
‘Let’s let him go.’
American hunting influencer Sam Strable grabbed a wild baby wombat from its mother on an unidentified road in Australia (pictured)
Sam Hunter is an American hunting influencer with almost 100,000 followers on Instagram
The man replied: ‘Nah, he’s all right.’
Seconds later, Ms Strable released the joey onto the side of the road where its mother was waiting.
The Instagram post received a barrage of backlash, with social media users reporting the video under ‘animal abuse’.
Ms Strable initially defended her actions, claiming she did not harm the joey and only held it for one minute.
‘For everyone that’s worried and unhappy, the baby was carefully held for ONE minute in total and then released back to mum,’ she wrote.
‘They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed. 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.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Strable for comment.
Ms Strable initially defended her actions claiming she only held the joey for a minute before deleting the video after she received a barrage of negative backlash (stock image)
Outraged Aussies continued to flood her social media platforms with negative comments, prompting Ms Strable to switch her accounts to private.
Despite Ms Strable’s attempt to remove the video from social media, other users preserved and shared it on both Reddit and TikTok.
‘As a wildlife rescuer specialising in wombats I can tell you… that this is an absolutely terrifying experience for mum and joey,’ one person commented.
‘It’s not just the entitlement, it’s the disrespect. To greedily exploit the moment for personal gain no matter the trauma it causes to anything and anyone else, it’s such an indictment on her character. Absolutely shameful,’ a second person wrote.
‘Revolting, both her and the bloke with her. How the f**k they think that mum trying to get bubs back, and that baby screeching in terror, is funny and OK is absolutely beyond me. Soulless, gutless, heartless stuff,’ a third chimed in.
Other social media users called for her to be reported to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and deported back to the US and her home state of Montana.
‘This is heinous and they should both be charged,’ one person wrote.
‘Please report her to Australian Department of Home Affairs so they can ban her from ever stepping foot in Australia again,’ a second person commented.
A third added: ‘Hope she gets the maximum punishment for f***ing with wildlife’, while a fourth chimed in: ‘Arrest. Fine. Deport. Ban.’
Ms Strable’s online presence is largely populated with images of her posing with animal carcasses she claims to have hunted.
