It was completely crazy!
A rabies expert called New York authorities' killing of Punat the squirrel “insane” and said the state could have determined whether the animal was dangerous without cutting off its head. .
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Edward R. Lenshimer told the Post that Peanut and his raccoon friend Fred had rabies, even though state officials captured the animals in October and brought them down for rabies testing. He said the chance of being infected was “virtually zero”.
“There has never been any documented transmission of rabies to humans in this country,” said Lenshimer, a Texas infectious disease expert who has studied rabies for decades.
“Frankly, I can't imagine what they were thinking, even if they knew anything about this field,” he added.
Social media-famous pet squirrels and Fred (a young, nursing raccoon kit) were captured in October, just hours after they were confiscated from the upstate home of Mark Longo, the animal sanctuary's caretaker. It was euthanized by the Department of Environmental Protection. on his premises.
In December, authorities said the animals were removed because Longo was holding them without permission, and that Peanut required a rabies test after he allegedly bit an employee's thumb through two protective gloves. However, the state's own rabies information backs up Rencimer's assessment. This means the risk of infection is almost non-existent.
In its rabies fact sheet, the New York State Department of Health states that “some animals rarely get rabies,” especially “small rodents such as squirrels,” which only contract rabies in “rare circumstances.”
And while it is generally agreed that raccoons are more prevalent carriers, the actual number of confirmed cases appears to be very low, according to data collected by New York State. According to the data, there have been only 35 laboratory-confirmed rabies cases in raccoons in the 17 years since records were first kept in 2007.
Chemung County, where Punat and Fred were killed, had only one confirmed case of rabies in a raccoon during that time. And the state has no available records of rabies being found in squirrels.
” [Center for Disease Control] “We do not consider squirrel bites to be reportable,” Lenshimer said.
Even though authorities feared that Fred, who was left on Longo's doorstep months earlier in need of urgent care, may have contracted rabies and passed it on to Punat. Based on the way it appears, killing the animal is the first resort, Lensheimer said. Weird reply. ”
The exact timeline for rabies infection in raccoons and squirrels is not completely known, but in animals of similar size, such as cats, dogs and ferrets, symptoms almost always appear within 10 days, Rencimer said.
Fred had been in Longo's care for more than 10 days, and Punat had lived with him for seven years, a fact that was readily available due to Longo's widely viewed social media, but the animals did not have rabies. There was sufficient evidence to show that. .
“If the raccoon came to them a few months ago as a frail small animal, there is a very small chance that the raccoon is still alive and infected with rabies,” Renshimer said, adding that the raccoon may be showing symptoms or not. He added that it would have been extremely difficult to isolate the animals for 10 days to see if they were safe. It's a more rational and common approach than cutting off their heads and testing their brains for rabies.
And even if DEC officials were especially concerned about rabies (which is usually fatal to humans if it reaches the brain), if you're bitten on the hand by an infected animal, it takes about 45 days or more for the brain to become infected. said Lencimer.
“You're not going to get bitten on Friday and die on Sunday,” Rencimer said. “They've had time to think about this. They might say, 'You know, there's no emergency here.' Let's think about this. ”
“It would have been reasonable to say to that guy, 'What about rabies vaccination?'” Why kill and study the animal to make sure it doesn't have rabies? ? The chance of contracting rabies is virtually zero. ”
Rensheimer said that this rabies vaccination after the bite would have completely neutralized the risk of infection, and that DEC employees tasked with handling animals were not up-to-date on vaccinations in the first place. He added that it seems very strange that he is not getting information.
“That's insane. That's common sense. You don't have to be a rabies expert to know that,” he said. “The whole thing stinks. They had options, they had time, and they didn't exercise either.”
Subsequent test results revealed that both Peanut and Fred had rabies.
DEC has not responded to requests for comment about the agency's staff vaccination practices and has not yet provided documentation that P'Nut bit anyone during the raid.
But all of DEC's explanations about the squirrel bite and rabies scare were called into question after the Post reported that authorities had planned to euthanize Peanut and Fred at least seven days before the apparent bite. . Now, Peanut's guardians have filed a lawsuit. State to find some answers.
Longo's attorney, Nora Constance Marino, said in a statement that “alleged rabies threats generally involve unreasonable fear-mongering and provide an unwarranted pretext for killing raccoons and other animals. , it's not actually based on fact,” he told the newspaper.
“Frankly, that's horrifying and outrageous. But trained DEC personnel, Department of Health personnel, animal control personnel should know better. The fact that they proceeded to execute these animals speaks volumes.”
Dr. Rensheimer said something seems off about the DEC's actions.
“They clearly weren't sweating and trying to gather information to protect these animals,” he said. “It seems to me that they had an agenda and they just created a factual basis based on that agenda rather than doing the right thing.”
