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.
Unfortunately quarantine and observation isn’t effective as a testing strategy for animals, the disease can progress at different rates and it’s possible for infected animals to show no symptoms. As rabies can’t be treated after symptoms start showing, they can’t take the time to do this.
Well yeah I’m sure the rescue would quarantine him even longer, I just wanted to reduce handling of a potentially sick animal to a minimum. Plus, by then, results on the squirrel would have come back and give us another hint on the possibility of Fred being sick.
Sadly the only way to know for sure is to test brain tissue, including in people, so there’s no way to be certain without killing the potentially infected animal/person.
There are a bunch of tests they can do for people that can potentially identify rabies (lumbar puncture, CT and MRI scans, skin biopsy, antibody test) but apparently it can still be easily missed even with all of these tests so they aren’t enough for an accurate diagnoses.