Additional context: the squirrel bit one of the officers that was confiscating it. So they absolutely needed to test for rabies.
Don’t post your crimes to social media folks. Or do, I’m not a cop.
No they didnt have to “confiscate” anything and a “animal control officer” not even knowing how to handle a squirrel is a gigantic shit show on its own, especially when the squirrel had absolutely no possibility of even getting rabies itself
More recently introduced was a raccoon - another rabies vector animal. And the test for rabies becomes mandatory when you are bitten by any vector animal. You can’t “know how to handle a squirrel” if you aren’t the favored person who feeds it - it’s a wild animal that had become accustomed to the owners presence at best. Raccoons and squirrels can legally be pets in some states, but NY is not one of them.
The guy was wrong. End of statement. There’s avenues to keeping the squirrel (Google mentions a wildlife rehabilitation type job/permit that takes some months to earn that he could have done) It just keeps getting twisted because “the police did a thing” crowd, and also “oh the silly cute squirrel” crowd. Yes it was a silly cute squirrel and yes cops do bad shit - but this was on him for not moving to a place that would let him keep these animals.
