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If one wombat story can cause international outrage, what could 3,558 do?
Unless you’ve been living underground, you would have seen the outrage caused when a U.S. tourist picked up a baby wombat for a few seconds of Instagram glory.
She got her 15 minutes of fame—or infamy—and we hope that all is well with the distressed baby wombat and its equally distressed mother. We also hope all is well with Samantha Strable (better known as Sam Jones), the influencer at the heart of the story. Despite her deplorable actions, online bullying and online hate are never OK, and Ms Strable has received her fair share of both.
However, Australia’s outrage over the incident—from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese down—was a lesson in societal paradox. It was a classic example of when we speak about our family any way we want to but fly off the handle if anyone dares say anything disparaging. We stood up to protect our family from an outsider, but we ignorantly—or conveniently—forgot the damage we do to our own family every day.
In an opinion piece in the Guardian, Animal Justice Party MP, Georgie Purcell, urged our leaders to ‘recognise the hypocrisy’, but that urging should be directed to us all.
In late 2024, Humane World for Animals (known then as Humane Society International Australia) released Licence to Kill, a report into the licensed killing of Australia’s native wildlife. The report showed that in 2023, in a single year, 3,558 wombats were licensed to be killed. While the report garnered solid media interest and discourse, it was nothing like the outrage directed at Strable, who also pointed out our hypocrisy.
‘Let’s start with wombats,’ Strable wrote on her Instagram. ‘The Australian government allows and permits the slaughter of wombats. Thousands each year are shot, poisoned to suffer, and trapped legally.’
While no excuse for her actions, what Strable says is true: every year in Australia, state and territory governments grant licenses for the killing of native wildlife—1.2 million of them, again in 2023. And it’s not just wombats: kangaroos, wallabies, lorikeets, possums, dingoes, cockatoos, ducks, pademelons, even black swans, are amongst the carnage.
The reasons are varied, mostly to reduce human–wildlife conflict that stems from competition over grasslands or water, damage to property such as fences, or predation on farm animals. Sometimes it’s because native animals are simply seen as a pest or nuisance.
None of the ways the animals are killed—shooting, trapping, poisoning—are humane. Animals can be wounded by mis-shots and may suffer for days before death; while poisoned wildlife endure an agonising death, and the poison may be ingested by other animals; and, in all cases, orphaned young are often left behind.
And even more native animals are killed without a licence. Our Licence to Kill report is a tragically small glimpse into our inability to coexist with our wild neighbours.
Yes, it is absolutely right to call out animal cruelty. It is right for a society to set the standards we are prepared to walk by and those which will stop us in our tracks. But we need to be above reproach before we unleash on someone else’s bad behaviour.
In no way do we condone the actions of Samantha Strable—in fact we were horrified by what we saw—but we need to clean up our own house before we criticise someone else’s. And our house is a mess.
If the treatment of one wombat joey and its mother made you angry, then we can only assume that government granted licenses to kill 3,558 wombats in a single year did too. Please take our action to let politicians know you want an end to the licensed killing of Australian wildlife.
