The death of Peanut the squirrel

Two rescued animals, Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon, were euthanized after being confiscated from a rural New York home by officials last week.
According to The Associated Press, Mark Longo, a resident of Pine City, New York, had rescued both Peanut (also known as P’nut) and Fred and they lived in his home until they were taken away by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Peanut the squirrel had become famous on social media, per USA Today.
Longo’s Instagram account for Peanut, @peanut_the_squirrel, has over 700,000 followers, the squirrel also had followers on other platforms such as TikTok.
These followers “glimpsed the animal sporting tiny hats, doing tricks and nibbling on waffles clutched in his little paws,” per The Associated Press.
Last Wednesday, the animals were taken from Longo’s home by the Department of Environmental Conservation, per the AP.
“The DEC showed up in my house and issued me a search warrant for a squirrel and a raccoon,” Longo said, according to Newsweek. “They raided my house as if I was a drug dealer or something. It is the most shocking thing I have ever seen or witnessed in my life.”
According to The Associated Press, the agency had received reports that wildlife were being kept illegally and potentially unsafely.
In New York, it is illegal to keep young wildlife as pets, it often results in abnormal attachment to humans, per USA Today.
The DEC said, “After release, some return to places where people live, only to be attacked by domestic animals or to be hit by cars. Some become nuisances getting into stored food, trash cans or dwellings. And some may be thrust as unwelcome intruders into the home range of another member of their species,” according to USA Today.
On Friday, both animals were euthanized.
The statement from the department said the squirrel and raccoon had been euthanized to test for rabies.
“A person involved in the confiscation investigation was bitten by the squirrel,” per USA Today.
Longo began caring for Peanut seven years ago, after his mother got hit by a car. He had also been working to certify the squirrel as an educational animal, per The Associated Press.
Fred the raccoon was dropped on Longo’s doorstep a few months ago. He and his wife were planning to release Fred into the wild after they helped him recover from injuries.
“Honestly, this still kind of feels surreal, that the state that I live in actually targeted me and took two of the most beloved animals on this planet away, didn’t even quarantine them. They took them from my house and just killed them,” Longo said according to The Associated Press.
At a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, former President Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance, said that Trump was “Fired up” about the squirrel’s death, per Newsweek.
“The same government that doesn’t care about hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant criminals coming into our country, doesn’t want us to have pets, it’s the craziest thing,” Vance said according to the BBC.
Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump, wrote on X ““The government should not be allowed to barge into your house and kill your pet! That’s messed up. Even if it is illegal to have a pet squirrel (which it shouldn’t be), why kill PNut instead of simply releasing him into the forest!?”
Since the confiscation and death of Peanut and Fred, many people have taken to social media platforms such as Instagram and X in response the animals being euthanized.
Many people on social media are outraged that this happened, here are some of the posts about Peanut and Fred’s deaths on X.