Peanut, who has amassed more than half a million Instagram followers, was euthanized by officials to be tested for rabies.
Peanut, the Instagram-famous squirrel that was seized from its owner’s home Wednesday, has been euthanized by New York state officials.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation took Peanut, as well as a raccoon named Fred, on Wednesday after the agency learned the animals were “sharing a residence with humans, creating the potential for human exposure to rabies," it said in a joint statement with the Chemung County Department of Health.
Both Peanut and Fred were euthanized to test for rabies, the statement said. It was unclear when the animals were euthanized.
The only charge is “potential to spread rabies” and they killed the animal to test for that (for some reason). So, if the test comes back negative, they will make full repariations right?
full repariations
And surely such reparations would take into account future lost revenue, as they would be expected to it this were a regular person against a corporation.
Surely.
Sadly I think the monetary value of a cat is like $15 reimbursed. I imagine a squirrel is worth even less.
How about the monetary value of a social media influencer with half a million followers
It’s because rabies infects the brains of animals, so that’s the tissue that is tested.
I’m wondering why the people who were caring for the animals didn’t just get them rabies shots in the first place.
to test for rabies, couldnt they have just observed the animal in some quarantine for the gestation period of the disease?
They could have, but if the animal had already bitten a human, that extra few weeks’ wait is dangerous.
No, rabies is an absolutely bizarre virus. The progression of the disease is highly variable. The person peanut bit could star displaying symptoms before peanut. Once symptoms show up, you are essentially dead. Rabies has one of the highest death rates of know human diseases. The only definitive way to test for rabies is testing brain tissue. The amount needed for a high confidence result is too much for the animal to survive. So the animal is always euthanized. That why having all pets that can be vaccinated, vaccinated is so important.
Rabies vaccine is only made for a handful of animals. For example a vaccine is made for domestic sheep but not for domestic goats. Goats and sheep are closely enough related that goats owners have their animals vaccinated using the sheep vaccinations but since they have not been officially tested, you can’t say the animals have been vaccinated for rabies in a legal capacity so the petting zoo has a big sign about the rabies risk in goats.
I think this is mostly a case on NY state’s sick of people ignoring their wild animal laws and with NYC especially they can’t allow for people to just keep whatever animal they want and think it’s okay. If Peanuts owner had been licensed as an actual wildlife rehab, it would have been different but wildlife are not pets even when they are friendly.
Unfortunately rabies testing requires samples of the brain. This is why if you are bitten by an animal you suspect of having rabies, a professional should catch it and test the animal. The tests that exist for diagnosis in living humans are not reliable.
In this case I didn’t open the story to see why they believed a domesticated squirrel needed to be tested.
Edit: somebody that didn’t interact with the animals complained they might have rabies?
