Animal rights activist group PETA is outraged at two University of Michigan student-athletes who tried to sell a wallaby online after keeping it as a pet.
Cutler Martin, a sophomore and player on Michigan’s hockey team, and Jack Wangler, a football player, posted an online ad that was selling a baby male wallaby for $2,200, The Detroit News reports.
A PETA attorney, Brittany Peet, noticed the ad and offered Martin and Wangler $500 to hand the baby wallaby over to the Detroit Zoo. However, Martin refused the offer, saying it was not enough and “threatened” to sell the animal to a roadside exotic zoo instead.
Peet told Martin that it’s illegal to own and sell exotic animals in Michigan without a federal license, which Martin didn’t have. PETA claimed since the wallaby is only 2 months old it needs constant care and housing the animal in a residential home by college students could cause it harm.
“A wallaby doesn’t belong in a private home any more than a wolverine does,” Peet said.
My dad instincts are coming out right now and I really don't approve of @J_Wangler16 owning a wallaby in our home. pic.twitter.com/7NkdZ2YVG5
— Shane Morris (@ShaneMorris_7) June 26, 2015
Wangler, who initially listed the wallaby named Sampson online, vouched for Martin’s care of the pet.
“He was a really good pet. He would hop around and follow you. If you sat, he sat,” Wangler told The Detroit News. “The animal had extremely good living conditions. He was bottle fed.”
“I don’t think he was doing anything wrong. It just serves as learning lesson for everyone involved,” he said, only noting “it’s in good hands” now.
But instead of turning the wallaby over to the Detroit Zoo, Martin and Wangler gave the animal back to the breeder in Hudsonville, Mich. who sold it to them, according to The Detroit News.
“The student no longer has possession of the animal and it has been turned over to a responsible and appropriate adult,” Michigan spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen said in a statement on Friday.
But this wasn’t good enough for Peet, who also laid blame on the University.
“This student (Martin) and the school had the opportunity to step up and set a great example for all U of M sports fans by allowing this wallaby to spend the rest of his life in a naturalistic habitat with other animals at the Detroit Zoo,” Peet said to The Detroit News.
“Now the wallaby has apparently been sent back to the irresponsible breeder who allowed a college athlete to take home a baby wallaby in the first place.”