Samantha Strable, infamous for snatching a baby wombat, receives probation and a suspended jail sentence in a separate illegal hunting case.
Samantha Strable became internationally infamous after filming herself carrying a screaming baby wombat away from its mother in Australia. More than a year later, the outdoor influencer has received a suspended jail sentence—but for an entirely separate wildlife controversy in Wyoming.
A Hunting Trip That Ended in Court
Strable, who has also used the name Sam Jones online, was sentenced in Sublette County Circuit Court on August 27 after pleading no contest to hunting as a nonresident without a guide in a designated wilderness area.
The 26-year-old received 180 days in jail, but the entire sentence was suspended. She was also placed on 12 months of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay $575.40. Unless she violates the terms of her probation, she will not serve the jail time.
Wyoming requires nonresidents hunting big game inside federally designated wilderness areas to be accompanied by either a licensed professional guide or an authorized resident companion. The rule is partly intended to protect inexperienced visitors entering isolated terrain where sudden weather, difficult navigation and grizzly bears are genuine concerns.
The case began after a game warden encountered Strable near the New Fork trailhead in October 2025 as she prepared for an elk hunt. Authorities alleged that she had continued purchasing resident hunting licenses despite spending much of her time outside Wyoming and no longer qualifying as a resident under state law.
Strable initially faced eight misdemeanor charges, including six counts related to allegedly making false statements about her residency and another accusation of taking wildlife without a valid license. Prosecutors dismissed those seven charges as part of the agreement that resolved the case before trial.
Her attorney said Strable had not deliberately set out to break Wyoming’s hunting laws, although she acknowledged that she should have understood the requirements. Strable disputed investigators’ claims about how little time she had spent living in the state.
The Wombat Video That Made Her Infamous
Long before the Wyoming case reached court, Strable had already become one of Australia’s least popular tourists. In March 2025, she uploaded a video showing herself grabbing a wombat joey from the side of a road and running toward the camera while the distressed animal cried and its mother followed behind.
The joey was released moments later and wandered back toward the vegetation, but the footage generated immediate outrage. Wildlife experts warned that lifting the animal by its front limbs could have injured it, while Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly condemned the stunt and sarcastically suggested that Strable try the same approach with a baby crocodile.
Strable later apologized, saying she had feared the animals might be struck by a vehicle and picked up the joey to check whether it was sick or injured. She claimed that she ran because she worried the mother might attack and insisted that the pair were reunited unharmed.
Australian immigration officials began reviewing her visa, although Strable left the country voluntarily before that process went any further. No charges were reported over the wombat incident itself.
The Wyoming sentence is therefore unrelated to the video that made her famous. Still, for an influencer who built an audience around hunting, wildlife and the outdoors, returning to the headlines over another animal-related controversy is the sort of irony the internet rarely overlooks.