Ridiculous and wholly unnecessary government overreach. Every official that touched this should be fired and publicly dragged through the mud.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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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.
They put the animals in isolation and re turn them when they are cleared. I know they can that's what happened to my neighbor's dog after it bit someone.
They do that for dogs, cats and ferrets.
Dogs, cats and ferrets
Following rabies exposure, unvaccinated dogs, cats, and ferrets should be euthanized since no licensed biologics can ensure that they do not develop rabies. If the owner declines, dogs and cats need a strict 4-month quarantine, and ferrets need strict 6-month quarantine. They also need immediate rabies vaccination. Demonstrating an adequate serological response to vaccination may result in health officials reducing the quarantine period. Quarantine should be conducted in a secure facility that ensures people and other animals do not become exposed.
Other mammals
Other mammals should be euthanized immediately.
https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/hcp/veterinarians/index.html
We do not know how long rabies incubates in all animals, and they do NOT FUCK AROUND WITH THIS!!!
I spoke to vets, their faces go to stone when rabies exposure seriously comes up, this is not a disease, it is a literal nightmare, the worst zombie scenario you can imagine made reality.
It tears apart your mind completely and there is no treatment at all. Your family gets to watch.
This is just nothing to fuck with.
Yes i know how bad rabbies is. I was pointing out you can put the animals in isolation and see if they show signs on rabbies
How long?
Ferrets can incubate for almost 6 months.
Possums can carry forever with a dormant infection.
Can the animal's immune system defeat the infection entirely, or merely send it back to a carrier state? How do you characterize the behavior of the species in different stages of infection?
We don't know, because experimenting on these fuckers is nightmarishly dangerous, and we would have to test literally each mammal.
The plan is to wipe out rabies forever so we never have to deal with it, which is what happened in Europe, and which we could do here except our livestock tend to graze alongside wild animals.
Considering that most mammals can carry rabbies ending the disease is impossible.
They basically ended it in Europe and Australia.
Also, incidence has plummeted incredibly over the past century, though we had an uptick a decade ago.
We could effectively eliminate it, but the greatest generation cared about that, they feared it rightfully, we don't anymore.
The reason it's coming back is just complacency.
Well, a dog is a lower risk animal than wildlife. This was a poorly socialized squirrel that bit someone, and had potentially been in contact with hundreds of other animals at an animal sanctuary. The squirrel and the raccoon aren't legally pets in NY, and no effort was made to make them legal educational animals. From the standpoint of public health policy, what went down was pretty much by-the-books. The only way to test for rabies is to run tests on brain tissue. There isn't a "famous TikTok Animal" exception to the rules that protect us from rabies outbreaks.
Not asking for a TikTok exemption
Those officials think rabies is like a magical disease. It suddenly manifests are seven years. What a bunch of trash humans.
If rabies ever "manifests" itself in a human being (a person experiences symptoms), there is a 99% fatality rate. In fact, only 15 people worldwide have ever recovered following the onset of symptoms, albeit with extensive brain damage.
Rabies really is a "magical" disease. Once it makes it to your brain, the blood-brain barrier protects it from any medicinal treatment possible. Your only chance is for your own immune system to defeat the infection, and again, that has only happened 15 times ever.
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That guy sucks for keeping wild animals without the proper certification and training resulting in no medical care for the animals.
At the same time I'm also skeptical of how the state handled it because I feel it's important to remember that policies and how situations are handled can always use improvement.
For example, how did the investigator get bitten? Were they wearing proper protective gear and following procedure? Was he or she properly trained to detain animals like a squirrel? If the state is going to send people to confiscate wild animals a bite incident is a big fucking deal and there should be an internal investigation as to how that happened. For both the future safety of the employees and animals.
This whole situation sucks.
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.
Oops! They didn't have rabies! Here you go! They're in the bag.
Peanut had been living with owner Mark Longo for seven years
Man. What a feel-bad story. There's a certain kind of person who takes glee in destroying others' joy and they will use any technicality to get the excuse to do so all while blathering "the law is the law, the law is the law."
Seven years. What a shameful travesty.
Republicans. Unless they want a squirrel.
Okay, I was initially totally against the DEC but reading the article really changed my mind. You need a license to own wild animals in NY. Ya know cause they should not be pets... also wildlife rehabilitation requires a license and training. Also rehabilitating means returning them to the wild. Not to mention an extra license and training for animals that are common carriers of rabies.
He has a squirrel for 7 years as a pet without a license with zero intention to rehabilitate his animals. He was using them to make money. Getting them to do tricks, wear hats and clothes. He essentially had a roadside zoo, but his customers were online. He says he was in the process of getting a license. He had the squirrel for 7 years, and was actively collecting more animals. This guy sucks, no wonder people were reporting him.
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 yeah, this guy sucks. He was using the squirrel as a money-making scheme. Check out his website if you want to get more angry.
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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.
Social media is unregulated but owning them isn't. He needed a license to keep them, which he didn't have. And the "sanctuary" is just for domestics that was started last year. The website sells t shirts and options for donations. It seems like they got internet famous because of the squirrel and opened this as a way to make money.
Yeah - the more I look into it, the less sympathetic I am. There’s a lot of good reasons to have regulations for wildlife. A lot of “common sense” is just wrong (like the “mother birds abandon babies because of human scent”), and sometimes that gets animals killed unnecessarily. Folks assume because they know how to deal with a cat or a dog that squirrels and raccoons will be similar - they aren’t.
Legitimate wildlife rescues with ambassador animals don’t typically present them as pets. An animal being unreleasable is a fail state. A legitimate rescue will be trying to make the most out of a bad situation. When I’ve talked to keepers or watched vids online, they understand it as tragic that the animal will not be able to live its life independently - the fact that they can make money because people like getting to see cute animals is just trying to get something good out of it.
Squirrels aren’t domestic. They aren’t supposed to live with us.
[I’m not a wildlife expert, but I’ve shoveled shit as a volunteer at lots of different types of refuges and have chatted with many of the types of folks who run these places]
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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.
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The only charge is "potential to spread rabies" and they killed the animal to test for that (for some reason). So, if the test comes back negative, they will make full repariations right?
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.
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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.
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"What radicalised you?"
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.
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The statement said one of the officials involved in the investigation into Peanut and Fred was bitten by the squirrel.
Sorry but they had no real choice on this one. Vaccines can and should be administered immediately to any human bitten by an animal in all cases, but vaccines are not foolproof and the animals must be tested. The only method to test for rabies is removal of brain tissue.
Just because a wild animal is docile to some humans or has its own social media account does not mean they are pets and they should never have been in this situation unless the property owner was a certified rescue and rehab.
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
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.
The NBCNews article doesn't mention the word raid anywhere, it says inspection. If you know more about the story then your words are plausible but going by the article your account doesn't match. The owner waited 7 years to try for certification, supposedly.
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"I was just going through our daily routine of feeding all of our 71 rescued horses"
Okay now he's just flexing
What a depressing story
Wild squirrels are not legal pets in NY—not that the legality necessitates this cruel outcome.
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Disgusting, FYI yes squirrels can carry rabies, but it is extremely, I say again EXTREMELY rare, and transmission to a human via a squirrel is even MORE rare than that. Typically rabies just outright kills small rodents such as squirrels
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