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Peanut the squirrel seized, euthanized in NY state raid; Elon Musk reacts
Updated November 2, 2024 1:03pm EDT
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NY man has Instagram-famous pet squirrel Peanut seized by authorities
New York State authorities seized an Instagram-famous squirrel named Peanut from a New York man’s home on Wednesday.
NEW YORK – New York State authorities recently seized Peanut, an internet-famous squirrel, from a New York man’s home, resulting in the beloved critter’s euthanization and sparking outrage among fans.
Peanut, known for his cowboy hat and waffle-loving antics, had gained a social media following of over half a million.
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Mark Longo, Peanut’s owner, was devastated by the state’s actions.
According to Longo, at least six officers from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) came to his door, seizing Peanut and another of his unconventional pets, Fred the raccoon.
Peanut the squirrel (left), Fred the raccoon (right). (Credit: @pnuts_freedom_farm on Instagram. )
Longo expressed shock and sorrow, describing both animals as cherished members of his sanctuary, which he founded in 2023 as a safe haven for rescued animals.
RELATED: Instagram-famous pet squirrel Peanut seized by authorities in New York
The news has sparked widespread backlash, with even Elon Musk weighing in on X writing, “The government should leave people and their animals alone.”
Many fans echoed similar sentiments, demanding compassion and calling for changes in wildlife policies.
Fans say they too are heartbroken, sharing messages of love and condolences online.
In a social media post, Longo shared: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the heartbreaking news: on Oct. 30, the DEC made the devastating decision to euthanize our beloved Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon.” He criticized the DEC for informing the media before notifying him, calling it a “troubling lack of respect and empathy.”
“It breaks our hearts that there were mean people who took you away from us, people who didn’t understand the joy and love you brought to our lives.”— P’nuts Freedom Farm
Why did authorities take Peanut?
The DEC said it launched an investigation following reports of “potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets.” Longo claims Peanut, who was unfit for release due to a lack of survival skills, was being certified as an educational animal under state regulations.
Despite the tragedy, Longo has vowed to continue his mission, announcing plans to set up a fundraiser in Peanut’s memory. “I’ll never give up on this nonprofit or those who fell in love with Peanut,” he wrote.
One Super Predator in Africa Instills Even More Fear Than Lions
Nature02 November 2024
(johan63/iStock/Getty Images)
With their bladed paws, wielded by a rippling mass of pure muscle, sharp eyes, agile reflexes, and crushing fanged jaws, lions are certainly not a predator most animals have any interest in messing with. Especially seeing as they also have the smarts to hunt in packs.
“Lions are the biggest group-hunting land predator on the planet, and thus ought to be the scariest,” conservation biologist Michael Clinchy from Western University in Canada said in 2023.
But in over 10,000 recordings of wildlife on the African savannah, 95 percent of the species observed responded with far more terror to the sound of an entirely different beast. This animal isn’t even technically an apex predator. It’s us: humans.
We’re the monsters lurking under other mammals’ beds.
“The fear of humans is ingrained and pervasive,” said Clinchy. “There’s this idea that the animals are going to habituate to humans if they’re not hunted. But we’ve shown that this isn’t the case.”
In research published last year, Western University ecologist Liana Zanette and colleagues played a series of vocalizations and sounds to animals at waterholes in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park and recorded their response.
This protected area is home to the world’s largest remaining lion (Panthera leo) population, so the other mammals are well aware of the danger these carnivores represent.
The researchers broadcast the sounds of human conversations in local languages, including Tsonga, Northern Sotho, English, and Afrikaans, as well as the sounds of human hunting, including barking dogs and gunshots. They also played the sounds of lions communicating with each other.
“The key thing is that the lion vocalizations are of them snarling and growling, in ‘conversation’ as it were, not roaring at each other,” said Clinchy. “That way the lion vocalizations are directly comparable to those of the humans speaking conversationally.”
Not all of the experimental subjects appreciated the researchers’ efforts though.
“One night, the lion recording made this elephant so angry that it charged and just smashed the whole thing,” Zanette said, referring to the camera setup.
Seems like a fair response!
Almost all 19 of the mammal species observed in experiments were twice as likely to abandon the waterholes when hearing humans talking compared to lions or even hunting sounds. The mammals include rhinos, elephants, giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, and warthogs, some of which can pose dangers in their own right.
But fear of these creatures rarely stops us from deciding their fate. From taking down massive mammoths to tending the most dangerous modern dinosaur we’ll take on any challenge.
As the most lethal animal on the planet by far and a major driver of evolution, humans have sadly earned every heart-racing beat of terror we instill in others.
“It was specifically hearing human vocalizations which inspired the greatest fear,” the team explain in their paper, “suggesting that wildlife recognize humans as the real danger, whereas related disturbances such as barking dogs are merely lesser proxies.”
Given how ubiquitous humans now are, escaping from us is only ever going to be a temporary situation, meaning that these mammals will unfortunately keep having their fears triggered.
This is not great for the already dwindling populations of many savannah species, including giraffes. As the team’s previous research suggests, continued fear alone can reduce prey animal populations over generations.
But conservation biologists may be able to harness this knowledge to help these species, too. By playing human conversations in areas with known poaching in South Africa, they hope to keep the endangered Southern white rhino safely away.
“I think the pervasiveness of the fear throughout the savannah mammal community is a real testament to the environmental impact that humans have,” said Zanette.
“Not just through habitat loss and climate change and species extinction, which is all important stuff. But just having us out there on that landscape is enough of a danger signal that they respond really strongly. They are scared to death of humans, way more than any other predator.”
This research was published in Current Biology.
An earlier version of this article was published in October 2023.
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Petition Urges U.S. Forest Service to Ban “Cyanide Bombs”
More Than 60 Conservation Groups Oppose Deadly M-44s EUGENE, OR — The Center for Biological Diversity, Predator Defense and scores of other conservation groups petitioned the U.S. Forest Service today to ban the use of M-44 devices, commonly known as ‘‘cyanide bombs,’’ in national forests. These wildlife-killing devices are spring-loaded ejectors armed with cyanide powder that have injured people and inhumanely killed thousands of animals every year. “M-44s are indiscriminate devices that can never be used safely,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense, a national wildlife advocacy group. “I’ve worked with victims of M-44s for over 30 years and know firsthand that the federal government has no justification for attempting to ‘manage’ native predators with a device that kills and poisons endangered species, wildlife, dogs and humans — especially on our shared public forest lands.” Despite public opposition, the Forest Service has continued to authorize use of these dangerous devices by Wildlife Services, the animal-killing program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, M-44s have not been actually placed on national forest lands in the past several years, according to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. If the Forest Service put the requested regulatory ban in place, the agency could not resume M-44 authorizations without involvement from the public. The Bureau of Land Management recently issued a ban prohibiting the use of M-44s by Wildlife Services on all BLM-managed lands. M-44s are not used on lands administered by the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Bureau of Reclamation. Today’s petition asks the Forest Service to similarly ban use of the devices on the federal lands it manages. Wildlife Services poisoned 6,543 animals using M-44 cyanide bombs in 2023. Of these deaths 156 were unintentional. The program reported using M-44s last year in 10 states: Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. State agencies in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico and Texas are also authorized to use M-44s. The devices continue to be used, even after a well-known tragedy in 2017 in Pocatello, Idaho. Canyon Mansfield was 14 years old when he inadvertently triggered an M-44 device placed on BLM land behind his home; the M-44 killed his dog and injured him. He is believed to have been spared from death because of the wind’s direction. “The Forest Service needs to step up with a ban so that we all can step safely in our national forests,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I just can’t understand why the Forest Service won’t follow the lead of other land-management agencies that rightly recognized how dangerous cyanide bombs are to wildlife, people and their pets. Forest Service officials need to take a stand against these deadly devices.” Today’s administrative rulemaking petition complements ongoing efforts to pass federal legislation banning the devices, with two bills introduced in Congress this session. # # # The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Predator Defense is a national nonprofit advocacy organization devoted to protecting essential native predators, helping people learn to coexist with wild animals, and ending America’s war on wildlife. They have been championing native predators with science, sanity, and heart since 1990. |
| Predator Defense | predatordefense.org |
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Idaho’s First Wildlife Overpass Wins National Highway Award
- Idaho Transportation Department
- Oct 31, 2024 Updated Oct 31, 2024
- https://www.bigcountrynewsconnection.com/idaho/idaho-s-first-wildlife-overpass-wins-national-highway-award/article_99fb1574-97b7-11ef-9f79-1f2c3d1b3647.html
BOISE – Idaho’s first wildlife overpass, built last year on State Highway 21 just east of Boise, won a national award in the “Environment & Planning” category of the AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) President’s Transportation awards, announced today (Thursday, Oct. 31) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It was one of two awards won Thursday by ITD, and was the 23rd AASHTO President’s award, signifying the best work nationally by a state DOT, won by ITD since 2014. The second award was for cultural discoveries associated with the McArthur Lake project in North Idaho.
“These two AASHTO national awards again prove that our employees are fantastic,” confirmed ITD Chief Deputy and Chief Operations Officer Dan McElhinney. “The SH-21 Lucky Peak wildlife crossing is a great partnering example, and the U.S. 95 McArthur Lake Bridge showcased excellent Tribal teamwork, to solve wildlife safety with cultural preservation success.”
The AASHTO President’s Awards are considered the highest honor for state departments of transportation. It is proof positive that ITD consistently produces great projects on behalf of the taxpayers of Idaho.
The $7.5M project constructed a 150-foot long wildlife overpass and more than a mile of big-game fencing parallel to the highway to guide animals to the overpass, significantly reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions on this busy highway section. The project improved motorist safety and protected the well-being of residents and commuters, along with wildlife. It benefits the traveling public, hunting and recreational heritage, and helps sustain the benefits our valuable wildlife resources and public lands provide. ITD wildlife-vehicle crash safety data and Dept. of Fish and Game GPS data determined the location of the overpass by finding where most migrating mule deer and elk crossed the highway. This is the next step in the long-range vision to promote safety, mobility, and economic opportunity along SH-21 between Lucky Peak and Idaho City. The goal is to reduce wildlife collisions in the area by 80%.
“When I look back to where we were and came from, ITD started from scratch, with a simple notion and idea to meet and talk with stakeholders and people with differing interests and contrasting missions regarding the unwanted consequences of wildlife vehicle collisions and what can be done about it,” explained Project Manager Scott Rudel. “This award celebrates the collaborative work and accomplishments done in the name of safety, protecting the health and welfare of people and wildlife, preserving our natural resources, and maintaining our quality of life (recreational and hunting heritage) which benefits all who live in Idaho, the traveling public and our wildlife populations. It gives credence that by extending that collaborative hand, ITD ‘bridged’ the gap and found a better way to do things on so many different levels.”
Exposing the Big Game 