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Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Australia has ordered strict punishment for a teenager who was caught forcing a quokka to vape on video.

In a recent video - a quokka a marsupial also known as short-tailed scrub wallaby- is seen standing on its back legs and curiously lick the e-cigarette device, which it assumed was food. The teenage girl then shoved the device down the vulnerable quokka’s throat, forcing it to vape.

When the authorities caught hold of the video, they quickly opened an investigation into this matter calling it "completely and utterly irresponsible and unacceptable for this poor defenseless, vulnerable animal to be subjected to that kind of cruelty," RSPCA WA executive manager Hannah Dreaver told 9News.

If and when the culprits are caught, they will be sentenced to a maximum jail sentence of five years along with a monetary fine of AUD$50,000 on charges of animal cruelty.

Quokkas have been classified as vulnerable to extinction. "Those animals are really, really vulnerable," Dreaver said. "They've become used to human interaction so they’re not running away from us" but are instead "actually seeking it out".

RSPCA has warned people to not indulge in any such acts of cruelty and has stressed that any form of food or liquid which is not a part of their natural diet is extremely harmful to them.

Considering how a young person was also fined for feeding alcohol to a quokka, authorities have warned that alcohol can "potentially kill an animal as small as this".

"What concerns us is that people do this and post it on social media thinking it’s funny, when it is actually intentional cruelty that can have severe or fatal effect on the animal," authorities said.