The man who can now be named as Australian hunter Louis Sixt was captured on video laughing while his American girlfriend manhandled a baby wombat, a scene that sparked outrage worldwide.
Samantha Strable, aged 24, posted a video that has since been removed, showing her snatching the joey from the roadside and then fleeing from the upset mother who was in pursuit.
As the frightened baby wombat audibly hissed in fear, Strable proudly displayed it for the camera while Sixt chuckled and taunted the mother trailing after them.
In a fiery three-part rant posted on her Instagram page on Saturday, Strable, who fled Australia a day earlier, claimed the reaction to her divisive video had been hypocritical given ‘the Australian government allows and permits the slaughter of wombats’.Â
‘Thousands each year are shot, poisoned to suffer, and trapped legally,’ she claimed.
‘Landowners rip up wombat burrows with heavy machinery, poison them with fumigation, and shoot them whenever they can.Â
‘Quietly, of course, so as not to face the wrath that has come upon me.’Â
Daily Mail Australia has been told the Montana-based influencer had been living with her sheep shearer boyfriend in his hometown of Cooma in NSW’s Snowy Mountains around the time of the incident.Â
Samantha Strable and her Aussie boyfriend Louis Sixt pictured on a hunting expedition prior to fleeing Australia
Ms Stable pictured with a dead wallaby on a hunting trip to New Zealand
And new images also emerged of her previous trips Down Under, spearfishing on the Great Barrier Reef, deerhunting in the bush, and shooting wallabies in New Zealand.
The couple are understood to have met through a Facebook group for hunting enthusiasts before things turned romantic.
According to a friend of Strable’s family, father-of-one Sixt is an experienced hunter in his own right.Â
The couple have shared photos of their adventures to social media and boasted of their kills on private Facebook groups for hunting enthusiasts.
In March last year, the couple travelled to the Great Barrier Reef for their spear fishing expedition.
Another video appeared to show Ms Strable pulling a small shark by the tail from a rock pool.Â
‘Hooked into a massiveee shark tonight. Ran 200+ yards and eventually managed to get off after a long fight. Crap!’ it was captioned. ‘Little shark was ready to fight.’Â
Another photo shows her posing with a dead deer:Â ‘Got my first chital (Axis deer).
Ms Strable said she had now shot three different types of deer
US hunting influencer Samantha Strable posing on a beach in Victorian beach last December
Samantha Strable had previously been pictured holding a potentially lethal puffer fish which had inflated in a bid to protect itself
‘Australia is full of epic, wild deer and harvesting this beautiful stag marks my third deer species.’
In 2023 she also shared confronting images of two dead wallabies she killed during a trip to New Zealand.
The new details emerged as another of her former bosses stressed she was no longer employed by their firm. Her LinkedIn lists her as an environmental scientist for a company called Bowman.
But the firm hit back on Friday and said they ‘condemned’ her behaviour
‘Ms Strable is NOT employed by Bowman as an Environmental Scientist or in any other capacity, ‘ a company spokesman posted online.
‘She was employed by Bowman for a very short period of time and apparently has not updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect her termination from Bowman.Â
‘The video of Ms Strable with a baby wombat was recorded following her brief time with the company and she was not acting as a Bowman employee in any capacity when this video was filmed.’
It added: ‘As wildlife conservationists ourselves, we are dedicated to preserving wildlife and their habitats.Â
The couple have shared photos of their adventures to social media and boasted of their kills on private Facebook groups for hunting enthusiasts
Ms Stable pictured with a dead sting ray on a trip to New ZealandÂ
Sheep shearer Louis Sixt is also an avid hunter
He’s disabled his facebook account since his girlfriends wombat antics caused national outrage
‘The behavior depicted in the video is inconsistent with our values, and we do not condone or support such behavior in any way, shape or form.Â
‘In fact, we condemn this type of behavior and only hope that Ms. Strable learns from this event.’
Prior to settling in Cooma the couple travelled in the US where their hunting continued.
‘It’s been three years since I hunted antelope last and it was so worth the wait to find this beautiful buck! Thrilled to have had a successful hunt.’ she wrote alongside the animal carcas.
‘Steaks for dinner!’ she added
The couple are understood to have returned to the alpine town so Mr Sixt could be close to his young son and family.
Since facing national backlash Mr Sixt has gone to ground, deleting his once active Facebook account.
‘He is elusive at the best of times,’ a Cooma local revealed.
The couple travelled to the Great Barrier Reef to go spearfishing
In 2023 she also shared confronting images of two dead wallabies she killed during a trip to New Zealand
‘I wouldn’t have a clue if he’s fled to the US with Samantha but the locals aren’t impressed.’Â
However, she has 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.’
