Queensland’s Environment Department has asked a Gold Coast couple for a briefing on a new animated series about their dog Peggy and adopted magpie, Molly.
Peggy and Molly (along with Peggy’s puppy, Ruby) have become a social media hit, amassing 1.3 million followers on Facebook and 949,000 on Instagram.
Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen had cultivated the online following after they found Molly, a male magpie, abandoned in 2020 and nursed it back to heath at their home.
An animated series featuring Peggy and Molly, the Gold Coast staffy and magpie, is in the works.Credit: Xentrix Studios
But they ran afoul of the law, which prohibited keeping wildlife as pets. Environment Department officers acted and seized Molly on March 1, leading to social media outcry that was heard as far up as Premier Steven Miles’ office.
In April, Molly was returned to the couple on the condition that they obtain proper animal care training and licences, and that they had “no ongoing commercial gain from the bird or its image”.
But in a post on the Peggy and Molly Facebook page on Thursday, an upcoming animated series, featuring characters based on Peggy, Molly, other animals and themselves, was announced.
The real Molly the magpie with Peggy the Staffy. Credit: Facebook/Peggy and Molly
“We are so excited to announce Xentrix Studios are going to bring to life a wholesome heartwarming animated series about a kind-hearted, animal-loving couple and their beautiful staffy girls, a magpie and their friends,” they wrote.
On Friday, a Department of Environment, Science and Innovation spokesperson reiterated the conditions of Molly’s return, including that the couple “not conduct activities for commercial purposes with the magpie”.
Source Agencies
