A group of animal lovers filed a police complaint against “My Mate Nate”, whose real name is Nate Bartling, over alleged cruelty to animals.

Nutch Prasopsin, the administrator of the website Kingdom of Tigers (“Toon Hua Khong Bao” in Thai), which is popular among cat owners, and other animal lovers, filed their complaint at the Huai Khwang Police Station against “My Mate Nate”. She accused the famous YouTuber of committing cruelty against animals for exposing his own cats to a venomous arachnid.

The police station’s caretaker superintendent, Pol Lt-Colonel Kampol Ratanaprateep, said yesterday after accepting the complaint that judging from what he saw in the video, the act was an offence under the law on cruelty to animals. He added that if found guilty, the offender could face a jail term of up to two years or a maximum fine of Bt40,000, or both.

Nutch told Nation TV yesterday that she did not want young people who saw the video to think it was acceptable. She disputed Bartling’s claim in the video that his pet scorpion was not poisonous, saying that all veterinarians she asked maintained that scorpions actually have venom.

On her website, she called on animal lovers to show their opposition to acts of cruelty against animals.

A signature campaign on Change.org seeking legal action against My Mate Nate has drawn more than 52,000 supporters. The campaigner’s goal is to collect at least 75,000 supporters.

The controversial YouTube video, titled “Cat vs scorpion: Who will win?”, was posted three days ago and got more than 834,000 views.

Bartling, a former Mormon missionary, has 3.1 million subscribers of his YouTube channel and more than 900,000 followers on his Facebook account.

According to his YouTube video about his life, he is an American who lives in Bangkok and loves making movies. He has lived in Thailand for more than three years. “I never went to university. I only finished high school,” he said.

He has been famous for “prank videos” that make fun of other people.

The American came under fire last year after he posted a video in which he tested Thai people’s English comprehension skills by posing embarrassing questions to them, such as asking if they were menstruating. He later publicly apologised for doing so.

In his previous videos he pranked convenience-store cashiers with 1,600 small-change coins and tied his cat to a large number of helium balloons, to answer the question “How many balloons to make a cat fly?”

Nutch also posted an open letter to My Mate Nate yesterday. “As a person who loves cats, I cannot tolerate or accept your uncouth acts involving |animals in these clips. I want you to take full responsibility as the owner or guardian of the cat(s) that you have used or may use in your clips,” her |message said.

She reminded Bartling that |he should be aware that there is the |animal welfare and protection law to prevent acts of cruelty.