State government officials this week seized and ultimately destroyed P’Nut, a pet squirrel with a popular Instagram page, in Pine City, New York. Somehow, conservatives have decided to make this incident some kind of watershed for state abuse of personal liberties , not to mention pet squirrels. Thus P’Nut has become an election issue; Hey, why not, everything else is from McDonald’s to Liz Cheney. First pet squirrels, next guns and free enterprise. “First, they came for P’Nut, and I said nothing…”
Give me a break.
Mark Longo adopted P’Nut seven years ago in New York City as an orphaned baby squirrel that crawled up his leg after his mommy was squished by a car. The squirrel ended up with his own room, and when Longo and his wife were at home the furry friend wandered wherever he wanted in their house. Longo described P’Nut as “the most charismatic, sassy animal.”
P’Nut also was a profitable animal. The rodent became the face and name of P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, a nonprofit Longo and his wife started in April. The Longos contribute half of the organization’s roughly $20,000-a-month expenses to run the sanctuary and donors supply the other half, with most of those donations raised largely through cute P’Nut videos posted on Instagram. “We have rescued over 300 animals in our sanctuary already,” Longo said. “Cats, dogs, horses, goats, sheep, donkeys and pigs.”
Ah! The ends justify the means! Here is the problem: it is illegal to keep wildlife like squirrels as pets, in New York as well as many other states. The full list is here. (Pointer: jeffguinn) According to that source, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming all allow people to own pet squirrels. [Note: This is a correction from the original post, in which I assumed that all states would have prohibited P’Nut.]
None of which is relevant to the law in New York and it’s enforcement.
“Following multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets, D.E.C. conducted an investigation,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement after P’Nut was seized. “Investigation” is a bit sanitized: the operation has been described as a raid, and sure sounds like one. Before the officers left with P’Nut (and a raccoon, which nobody seems to care about), they “ransacked my entire house,” Longo said. “They made me sit outside for five hours.”
Presumably they were making sure that the house didn’t contain any other illegal residents. “We have had P’nut for seven years without a single complaint,” Longo said. “Now it’s suddenly an issue? It’s not like we were hiding him.”
Well, yes. That’s the problem. Longo and his wife were openly violating a law, and the argument for letting P’Nut keep hiding his nuts under their rugs is simple: the law is the law, there is no exception for cute law-breaking or profitable law-breaking. Regardless of the squirrel’s popularity and use in fundraising for a worthy cause, a law that isn’t enforced when it is broken for reasons some people think are justifications isn’t a law at all.
This isn’t just one slippery slope, it is several. Today it’s P’Nut the Squirrels, then it’s whenever that raccoon was, and tomorrow it’s Chewy the Wolverine.
“To the people who filed complaints, thank you for taking away the best part of me, thank you for taking away my best friend,” Longo whined online.
Conservatives have to stop flipping their values any time they see a chance for political point-scoring. This is called lacking integrity. Taking away P’Nut is based on the same principle that says “good illegal immigrants” should still be deported, Hillary Clinton shouldn’t get away with mishandling classified materials, and that if Donald Trump is prosecuted for mishandling documents, Joe Biden should be as well.
The King’s Pass is a rationalization even if the king is a squirrel.
A grace note: P’Nut had to be euthanized after he bit one of the officers as they removed him from his happy home, so they had to see if the squirrel had rabies. Good for P’Nut: he didn’t go down without a fight. We can’t blame him for not knowing the law.
Ethics Alarms 
Ah! The ends justify the means! Here is the problem: it is illegal to keep wildlife like squirrels as pets, in New York and everywhere else in the U.S.
That is not true.
Following multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies …
Squirrels, mice, and other small rodents have only very rarely been found to have rabies, and have never been known to transmit rabies to humans or other animals. In general, postexposure treatment is not recommended after a bite from one of these animals unless it is unusually vicious or appears obviously ill.
Well, yes. That’s the problem. Longo and his wife were openly violating a law, and the argument for letting P’Nut keep hiding his nuts under their rugs is simple: the law is the law, there is no exception for cute law-breaking or profitable law-breaking. Regardless of the squirrel’s popularity and use in fundraising for a worthy cause, a law that isn’t enforced when it is broken for reasons some people think are justifications isn’t a law at all.
The real problem here is that it is a stupid law, brutally and unnecessarily enforced.
Great link, and I’ll add it, as well as correcting the error. I’m amazed, though.
Do see the Rationalizations list for “It’s a stupid law.” The ethical response to stupid laws is to change them, not to break them.
Like what Rosa Parks did? /sarc
Civil disobedience. Different issue.
Yet related. My guess is that the rule is so stupid and mostly unenforced that nobody knows the rule.
Seems like the squirrel-owners, having committed the crime, are publicly showing the ridiculousness of the rule while accepting the punishment.
That’s all the related markers of civil disobedience with the only difference being that these people probably had no idea they were breaking the law until the last few days when they clearly took action to get the proper permits after the completely out of state busybody filed enough complaints about their online show to the state and the state took initial action.
Do see the Rationalizations list for “It’s a stupid law.” The ethical response to stupid laws is to change them, not to break them.
Your response presumes two things: that the duty for ethical response lies solely upon the citizen; and, repealing pointless laws, particularly where they have limited effect, is, practically speaking, possible.
In theory, the NY Department of Natural Resources (or whatever they call themselves) also have an ethical duty to neutrally enforce laws within their remit that are sensible, and forward up the chain of command those that aren’t, in order to provide the government the information necessary to change, or repeal, burdensome laws that provide no societal benefit.
The NYDNR absolutely failed. The law against having squirrels as pets has no fundamental justification. They present no danger to the public, and is fundamentally no different than feeding wild ones. The NYDNR’s ethical obligation was to assess the situation, recommend repealing a useless law, and leave. Instead, they invaded this couple’s house for hours, pointlessly killed two of their pets, emotionally abused the wife, and deprived them of a significant source of income for their charity.
The duty here was not upon the Longo’s to obey a useless law, it was upon the NYDNR to rid the books of the damn thing.
There must be thousands of laws on the books that provide entry points for government abuse of power. How many of them get repealed ever?
(Full disclosure: I think squirrels are rats in cute outfits, and have dispatched more than a few to stop their destructive ways.)
None of this changes the ethical equation one iota. The law is on the books. When it is violated, it has to be enforced as long as it is on the books. If it is enforced, it has to be enforced consistently. A flagrant, highly publicized and open violation undermines respect for all laws. This was a flagrant and open violation.
There are sound public policy reasons to stop people from trapping urban wildlife—chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, field mice and squirrels as pets..or as dinner, for that matter. And the slippery slope is real: if raccoons, why not beavers? Badgers? Foxes?
The personnel overkill is a different issue, and its a good one to question. But that’s procedure, not law.
None of this changes the ethical equation one iota. The law is on the books. When it is violated, it has to be enforced as long as it is on the books. If it is enforced, it has to be enforced consistently. A flagrant, highly publicized and open violation undermines respect for all laws. This was a flagrant and open violation.
You are leaving the fundamental point untouched: why should any be law on the books? Either to prohibit an action that undertaken entails exogenous costs, or require one that avoided entails exogenous costs. There is absolutely no ethical reason for a law that does neither, because its existence allows the state to engage in arbitrary and pointless exercises of force.
Moreover, it wasn’t a flagrant and open violation, it was exactly the opposite. The only way the NYDNR knew about it wasn’t because the neighbors, complained, or they observed the predations of a killer squirrel. It took a Karen from 1800 miles away.
A guaranteed way to undermine respect for the law is for pointless laws to be arbitrarily and excessively enforced. When was the last time the NYDNR saddled up to deal with rogue squirrel rescue?
There are sound public policy reasons to stop people from trapping urban wildlife—chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, field mice and squirrels as pets..or as dinner, for that matter.
Then name them. If there is a good public policy reason to stop people having pet squirrels, I’d love to hear it, as I haven’t been able to find one. Same for Trash Pandas, etc. Same for dinner. It is legal to hunt rabbits throughout the US. Here in Idaho, the daily bag limit is eight.
And the slippery slope is real: if raccoons, why not beavers? Badgers? Foxes?
Depends on the state. Idaho allows owning beavers. It doesn’t allow Foxes, but 18 other states do. (I googled [is it illegal to own [fill in the blank])
Badgers are self-enforcing.
It’s a shame P’Nut had to be the sacrificial squirrel, but P’Nut’s killing had the inestimable benefit of demonstrating that stupid laws enforced by vicious idiots in uniform is stupid and vicious.
But this is essentially the undemocratic “hate speech” and “misinformation” argument applied to law. Who decides that a law is foolish or stupid? You? Me? No, we can express our opinions about it, but the system is that we relay on elected representatives to do it. It we don’t like their choices, then we elect new representatives. If we don’t like the way the system makes laws, then we try to change the system. Just braking the law because we don’t like it is not an ethical option. The process you’re outlining is exactly how we ended up with an open border, sanctuary cities, nationwide pot use, and many other social toxins. If we have law, an ethical citizen obeys it, and an ethical government enforces it. Write that in stone.
So you are arguing that there was an ethical duty to arrest Rosa Parks.
Of course there was. And if she hadn’t been arrested, he courageous act wouldn’t have had any impact.
This is not far from us and I had mixed feelings about it; although, I leaned strongly towards the result. People don’t seem to understand the nature of wild animals. Perhaps a squirrel is an innocuous ‘wild’ pet but there is the question of the rabies. I wasn’t even aware this was just south of me until this morning.
I’m leery of raccoons also; about 3 years ago I was walking at the park, like I do every day in the early morning, and was chased by a rabid raccoon. I’m not specifically afraid of raccoons but I didn’t want to get bit because then I would have had no choice but to get the rabies series – whatever that is now, I think 2 shots.
And the slippery slope is a concern here. New York forbids many exotic animals and I’m okay with that. Have you ever seen someone that was attacked by a chimpanzee? There have been several in the United States and they were gruesome. They are extremely strong and they rip off your fingers, face and other appendages to put it mildly. It seems there are only four states left now that allow chimpanzees as pets without a permit, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas and Texas.
There are a few exotic cat breeds that are somewhat popular also, Caracal, Lynx, Bobcat, Ocelot and others. All illegal in NY (perhaps some of these are allowed with special permits).
Have you seen this HBO show? I bailed almost immediately. Too weird for me…
No. I don’t have HBO but I wouldn’t watch that anyway. Anyone that saw the documentary or videos on the Charla Nash attack in Stamford probably wouldn’t watch it either.
It looks like the person who called in the complaint to the NY authorities has been doxxed. These online people are brutal; the person has deleted their online accounts. I’m glad I’ve never had any social media accounts. (Well, FB for 2 weeks then deleted).
The complainant – reportedly-apparently lives in Texas and wanted revenge because PNut had a bigger social media following. We have more serious problems if this is true
I think the reason this blew up is the draconian response from a seemingly dystopian government agency. If 2 officers had shown up, asked him about the squirrel, and told him he couldn’t have it, I don’t think this would have blown up even if they had taken the squirrel and later euthanized it.
However, they issued a warrant for a ‘raid’. At least 10 (reportedly armed) agents stormed the house, took the residents outside and detained them (in handcuffs?) while the others ransacked the property. They investigated the immigration status of one of the residents. This went on for 5 hours.
This wasn’t about a squirrel. This was about sending a message and making an example out of people. People understand this and that is what a lot of the outrage is about. This is a prime example of the government using their authority to abuse people under the cover of the law. This is just like prosecuting someone for valuing their real estate more than someone else did as fraud or prosecuting someone for a ‘sexual assault’ with no evidence decades after the statute of limitations expired.
Agreed
Yeah, what’s going on here with 10 officers, a warrant, detained 5 hours? What else is going on here – what is the full story. I cannot believe 10 officers were sent for someone having a pet squirrel.
In New York, owning a wild animal that could harm a person is a misdemeanor. The penalty for this offense is up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $500, or both.
How is this much force justified?
Yep. The blow up on the conservative side of the aisle was never about a squirrel. But all the pent up frustration that had been building since before Covid and really fermented under the boot-hill of the progressive handling of Covid.
I mean for crying out loud – All the state resources expended on a squirrel and NY is fine letting illegal immigrant run rampant. Do they have a similar petty larceny problem as San Francisco?
Nah – the conservative uproar over Peanut is way more than about Peanut.
Boot-heel….
Agreed.
jvb
I understand the rationale for the NY law but I do not agree with how it was enforced. Was this selective enforcement? Let me remind people that De Blasio drops NYC’s ‘Punxsutawney Phil’. In this case, it was Staten Island Chuck. This too is a wild animal and because it is a mammal it can spread rabies as well. There seems to be a difference in application of law because Chuck was not a zoo specimen. The difference is that this animal brings in revenue to the state annually on groundhog day. Staten Island Chuck died from his injuries from the fall some time later if I recall correctly.
Perhaps there should have been an opportunity for an alternative arrangement before someone got bitten trying to handle the animal. I cannot believe it was handled by a trained animal control officer because a glove would have been worn just as one does with a feral cat or rodent. Human being have a duty to exercise good judgement when handling animals. Knowing that a bite will result in the destruction regardless of actual infection is why you don’t try to bare hand the animal.
Selective enforcement?
Daniel Penny’s manslaughter trial began Friday, amidst a lot of discontent over the NYC DA charging someone who is seen by many as a hero.
Do you think Hochul is sending a message to the people of New York?
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Yes, certainly that’s far fetched. Is it as far fetched as the Arizona AG threatening to charge Trump with assault on Cheney?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/dtGBtw2ox1q9xTd8A
Just trying to get my kids to school and they alerted me a rabid ranger Rick by my driver door. Racoons!!!!! They’re as prolific as cats where I am. “Human being have a duty to exercise good judgement when handling animals…” with an 8lb sledge hammer.
I’m assuming that the reason that law enforcement felt the need to do a raid is that they assumed that simply telling P’Nut’s owners to stop breaking the law would result in them getting sneakier about breaking the law. That failure to seek ways to establish mutual trust is what leads to situations escalating instead of deescalating.
Furthermore, I would hope that the squirrel had already gotten rabies shots, in which case I would have expected the question of rabies to be a non-issue. Even so, I was under the impression that rabies vaccines are also administered to bitten humans as a precaution, without the need to do an autopsy on the animal to check. After all, it would be impractical to expect a hiker bitten by a raccoon to kill the raccoon and bring it back for testing.
That begets the question, what exactly were law enforcement intending to do with P’Nut in the first place? Set him free? What if he returned home? Kill him? Take him to an animal sanctuary… like the one his owners ran? Why didn’t they just ask the owners in the first place to put him in the sanctuary instead of keeping him in a human house? Or was the sanctuary not functionally or legally set up to handle squirrels?
(Side note: Based on the spelling, I’m forced to assume that “P’Nut” is pronounced “puh-NUT.” “P-Nut” would sound like the legume, and P Nut or P. Nut would normally sound similar, but with the accent on the second syllable.)
100% with you on the pronunciation of “P’nut”.
“Or was the sanctuary not functionally or legally set up to handle squirrels?”
I believe all that is necessary to provide a sanctuary for squirrels is a tree, leaves for them to build a nest and not allow people to hunt them. Feeding them is easy, they forage for all kinds of things. Throw a few peanuts on the ground and they are happy. They eat bird seed too. It would seem I operate a squirrel sanctuary in my backyard. I am waiting for a raid on my home because I live with trees in my yard and squirrels in those trees.
My concerns here are 1) if they raised the squirrel from baby squirrelhood, it might not have know how to survive in the wild, and 2) if released nearby, it might have found its way back to their house, meanwhile being unafraid of approaching humans. That’s why I figured the animal sanctuary might be a preferable option.
Of course, squirrels die in the wild every day. The only real difference here is that P’Nut was raised to expect humans to care for him, and if there’s an easy option not to break that trust, it would be most ethical to take it. That’s one reason humans usually consider it unethical to abandon cats, for example, even thought it’s definitely possible for cats to survive in the wild. Does that make sense?
All you had to do is release it to the nearest college campus. The squirrels there are usually semi-tame, being fed by college students. I know someone who raised an orphan squirrel like this until it was old enough to be released. Since it was tame, he released it to a college campus. For years, he could go to the tree where the squirrel lived and it would come out of the tree and sit on his shoulder.
Animal bites are a frequent headache for emergency departments. On the one hand, the risk of infection is infinitesimally low, especially for bites by domesticated/non-wild/non-aggressive/non-bat mammals; on the other hand, the risk is not zero and actual infection is universally fatal, sometimes years after the bite.
In my jurisdiction, full post-exposure prophylaxis consists of 4+ rabies vaccines, administered over 2 weeks, and a walloping dose of immunoglobulin administered around the wound on day 0. For an adult, this immunoglobulin is generally 5+ very, very painful needles to an area of the body not usually selected for injections.
For certain types of risk assessments, it can be preferable to perform an autopsy on the animal (and find it rabies negative) to save a human bite victim the suffering of the above regimen, though it is often just as helpful to detain and observe the animal for 10 days.
THAT SAID, in my jurisdiction, we do not consider squirrels to be suspect carriers for rabies because they are so unlikely to survive an encounter with a rabid animal, so P’nut’s fate still has me scratching my head.
That happened to me once. I was bitten by a ferrel kitten I was trying to remove from the underside of my car so it wouldn’t fall off on the highway. The kitten wasn’t happy about being grabbed, and shredded my hand.
I probably would have gone on about my day, but for the risk of rabies. However slight, as you say, it’s not zero, and it’s almost 100% fatal without the series of vaccines. (I did read about one person who had survived.)
At the ER, they tried to do the immunoglobulin injections. Since I was bitten on my fingers, they wanted to do the injections in my fingertips. Though I do swear occasionally, it’s not a major component of my vocabulary. However, on this occasion, though apologetic, I let out a long string of expletives that could be heard clear accross the ER. I don’t recall if they were able to complete the injections or not. I do remember the swearing though.
The series of 4 vaccines weren’t particularly painful. They were inconvenient, though. I’m in the LA area. Rabies is so rare now that the vaccines were only available in Pasadena, which was about an hour drive for me.
Regarding the squirrel, I think it’s a clear case of government overreach. I don’t have any problem with them enforcing the law, but they could have done so in a way that would build trust in government. Instead there are probably people being radicalized as we speak because of the way P’Nut was treated.
A few weeks ago I ran a stop sign and was pulled over. The officer could have dragged me out of my car, put me in cuffs in the back of his cruiser, and shot my dog. Instead he gave me a warning, (though he did give me a “fix-it” ticket for a break light.) I’ll probably never run that stop sign again, and I was grateful to him.
I was under the impression that animal control officers get rabies shots as a standard practice.
That’s a good point; and, if not, they’re creating unnecessary risks for themselves and for the animals they wrangle.
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-projected-to-win-in-50-state-landslide-after-appearing-in-squirrel-costume?utm_source=The%20Babylon%20Bee%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email
But this is essentially the undemocratic “hate speech” and “misinformation” argument applied to law. Who decides that a law is foolish or stupid? You? Me?
Laws without justification should set off Ethical Alarms.
I contend that a law prohibiting owning squirrels or raccoons as pets is completely unjustifiable.
Consider the class Pet Ownership. Within that class, owning squirrels or raccoons is prohibited, but owning Pit Bulls is fine.
What should be prohibited is animal ownership that creates a public nuisance, a danger to others, or is cruel.
Laws that have no justification threaten respect for the law. E.g: the 55 mph national speed limit.
Now, it is entirely possible that there is a justification for prohibiting owning squirrels, but if there is, I sure as heck haven’t been able to find it. Absent one, then there is the ethical problem of such a such a law enabling the very troubling invasion of this couple’s home for no damn reason.