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Michigan defenceman pinched by PETA for trying to sell wallaby

Neate Sager
Cutler Martin played 32 games for Michigan last season (Google Images)
Cutler Martin played 32 games for Michigan last season (Google Images)

Moral of this story: Wolverines and a wallaby do not mix, and if you are trying to make a "potential illegal deal" to sell an exotic animal, it is better to use an alias that does not include your real last name.

The Michigan Wolverines' iconic  logo might stand for M-barassed after the way that buying and trying to resell a wallaby named Samson boomeranged on 20-year-old defenceman Cutler Martin, a former member of the United States Hockey League's Tri-City Storm. Samson became quite a sensation in late June after photos of Michigan football players holding the marsupial native to Australia appeared on Instagram and Twitter.

That raised the antennae of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Soon after, PETA noticed positing on a website dedicated to selling exotic animals saying they were "selling the wallaby from [an address in] East Lansing [Michigan]," which is Martin's hometown. The sellar was identified as one Trevor Martin, because who was going to see through that?

Under U.S. federal law, it's also illegal to sell such an animal without possessing an "Animal Welfare Act license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture," which a PETA staff nember Brittany Peet informed Martin of when she reached out to try to convince him to sell Samson to the Detroit Zoo.

That's when PETA pulled a power play.

"According to Peet ... Martin reached out to a second PETA member who had also been in contact — without identifying their affiliation — to confirm details about the wallaby and its whereabouts. Peet said Martin offered to sell Samson to the second PETA member.

Peet said she then confronted Martin with this information and told him she would be sending a letter to U-M president Mark Schlissel, informing him of the situation. The letter was sent to Schlissel July 1.

According to Peet, Martin called her back later Wednesday and told her the animal was going back to the breeder. (Ann Arbor News, July 3)

All is well that ends well, then. Add it to endless litany of college student-athletes finding there are no end of ways to get into trouble during the off-season, and then trying to find a quick if not too well-thought-out way of making the problem disappear. Suffice to say, for his sake and Michigan's, Martin should probably focus on containing Badgers, Gophers and Nittany Lions, to name just some of his team's Big Ten rivals.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @naitSAYger.