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I think this is a fantastic story of perspective. Not doing the bare minimum to ensure you retain control over the animals you claim to love (and most certainly capitalized on monetarily) vs NYS immediately escalating this to baffling levels of stupid instantly.

OK, we have very serious, and honestly, pants-shittingly paranoid responses to rabies for a really good fucking reason:

If you show symptoms, you are dead. Period. And not a nice death.

When I was young, you saw a wild dog, lot of people would reach for their rifle, it was just their reflex.

Maybe we have to update the laws, but they are there for a reason, and one of those reasons is why we don't have too many rabies deaths in this country, and we are still considered one of the countries with high risk of rabies.

Tl;Dr - don't fuck with rabies.

Those officials think rabies is like a magical disease. It suddenly manifests are seven years. What a bunch of trash humans.

Republicans. Unless they want a squirrel.

I feel like I’m going nuts, is nobody on lemmy actually reading this article? This dude turbo sucked.

Longo brought Peanut him home, ultimately caring for the squirrel for eight months before trying to release it back into the wild. He said Peanut returned to his porch a day and a half later with a broken bone sticking out of its tail, at which point Longo determined Peanut couldn't survive in the wild alone and instead would move in with him.

Didn’t get him veterinary care though, because that would have resulted in his Cool Pet being taken away. What’s wrong with a little risk of sepsis and zero pain control for a serious injury if someone really, really wants to be a special boy??

Oh man I don't enjoy being that guy right now but for the love of all, It's CUSTOMERS. Costumers are people who work in dress-up.

I've only seen this in the past few years, but it's become such a common mistake. I don't understand it.

Sorry, I mean you're making a salient point about the lack of a license and all. Even so, if he's been caring for the squirrel domestically for seven years, where do they think the supposed rabies would have come from? It doesn't just manifest.

A wildlife rehabilitator (Nessie) on TikTok pointed out that his squirrel and his raccoon would not have had access to veterinary care (ie, vaccination for rabies).

She also pointed out that showcasing wildlife in social media is currently unregulated - in person exhibitions requiring an expensive license to get. This is a bit of a loophole, and what that guy did is likely to get that loophole closed up, and impact sanctuaries that do operate within the current law while using social media platforms to fundraise.

Also, personally, the way he showcased the animals just seemed inappropriate - squirrels eating human food just seems problematic. Iirc he ran a domestic rescue, not a wildlife rescue, which is a different skill set. Wildlife rescuers avoid interacting with animals as much as possible. Animals aren’t toys and don’t have the same kinds of needs we do, and the fact they are cute shouldn’t complicate our emotions.

No, the cruelty is the point. The kind of people who made this happen have common sense just like the rest of us, that 7-year-old squirrel didn't have rabies. They refuse to make exceptions or use common sense because they specifically want to hurt others.

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.

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.

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.

https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/laboratories/diagnostic.html#:~:text=Rabies%20testing%20requires%20that%20the,after%20an%20animal%20is%20euthanized.

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?

TBH this really shouldn't radicalize you. This is what people are supposed to do when an animal bites somebody. The thing that was done incorrectly was creating a situation where an animal could bite a person.

The dude had started getting his certification seeing as the squirrel didn't want to return to nature and had become domesticated when the raid happened. The owner wanted to be in line with the law, but that apparently just put a giant flag on him. Also, do they have to conduct a surprise raid instead of just approaching the guy and attempting to be civil with him? I saw no information that a civil approach was taken.

but vaccines are not foolproof

Yes they are. Only pointing out so there is not unnecessary fear spread about rabies. It is 100% preventable before or after exposure.

Does the rabies vaccine work? The rabies vaccine works remarkably well. Studies indicate that if the vaccine is given immediately and appropriately to someone who was bitten by a rabid animal, it is 100 percent effective.

https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-details/rabies-vaccine

Squirrels don't normally carry rabies.

While not impossible, it's actually considered near impossible by experts. For whatever reason, smaller mammals seem to simply not be affected by rabies.

There were no other options, imo. The inspector who was bitten likely did get a vaccine immediately, but vaccines are not guaranteed to work. There is no reliable way to test an animal for rabies without killing it.

These rules exist to help people and animals, and law enforcement followed them all to the letter.