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.
You can put the animals in isolation
But you cannot test for rabies without killing the animal. Rabies infections spread up the nervous system to the brain in hours, not weeks.
The animal bit a human, at that point nothing could be done.