Samantha Strable: US influencer who took baby wombat from mother accused of hunting violations

Samantha Strable, the US influencer who sparked outrage for stealing a baby wombat away from its mother, is in hot water once again.

This time it’s for allegedly breaching hunting laws in Wyoming.

Known online as Sam Jones, Ms Strable fled Australia in March after an outcry by public, politicians and wildlife advocacy groups over now deleted vision of her picking up a wombat joey and taking it away from its distressed mother.

The viral footage showed Ms Strable, a self-described “wildlife biologist and environmental scientist”, catching the joey at night on an unidentified roadside and rushing away with it down the road while it tries to wriggle out of her arms, clearly distressed, as the mother frets nearby.

The video was filmed by an Australian man who could be heard laughing and saying “Look at the mother, it’s chasing after her.”

Holding the hissing animal up for the camera, Ms Strable then says: “I caught a baby wombat. Mumma’s right there, she is p....d, let’s let him go.”

The video posted to Ms Strable’s Instagram account sparked enormous backlash, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese among those condemning her actions.

Now she’s made making headlines again, accused of multiple charges of making false claims about her residency to obtain hunting tags in Wyoming.

She was booked into Sublette County Jail on November 21 and released on her own recognisance that same day, according to an order filed in Pinedale Circuit Court, cited by Cowboy State Daily.

She is facing six counts of false swearing and one count each of taking wildlife without a licence and non resident hunting without a guide in a wilderness area.

For each count of false swearing she faces up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine, plus fines up to $10,000 for taking game without a license, and up to six months behind bars and a $1000 fine for hunting without a guide.

Court records list Ms Strable as a resident of Great Falls, Montana. She had previously claimed residency in Pinedale but had been absent and had lost her status as a resident hunter, according to an affidavit written by Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Jacob Miller cited by the Daily.

In Wyoming a person must be a resident for a year before applying for a licence as a resident, that licence is revoked if they are absent for more than 180 days. Non-residents are banned from hunting without a guide.

Mr Miller’s investigation found Ms Strable had only been in Wyoming for 29 days in 2024 and only a week in 2025 but had applied for multiple resident hunting licences, including for an elk tag in April 2024 before she killed an elk in October that year, and an antelope tag in May 2024 before killing a male antelope in that fall.

After her wombat controversy in Australia and amid calls for her deportation, Mr Albanese called it an “outrage” and challenged Ms Strable to “try some other Australian animals”.

“Take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there. Take another animal that can actually fight back rather than stealing a wombat from its mother. See how you go there,” he said.

But Ms Strable hit back at the backlash in March calling out the hypocrisy, claiming she was scapegoated for “clickbait” and pointing to Australia’s culling laws and the legal destruction of habitat for profit.

Ms Strable said she’s not against the legal culling of native animals in Australia, but is instead “against the hypocrisy”.

“Thousands of wombats are LEGALLY killed across Australia each year. That does NOT make my actions right, but you deserve to know,” she said on an Instagram story.