Killing A Rescued Squirrel Sets Environmental Efforts Back – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

Social media is abuzz with people telling the story of Peanut the Squirrel, and his death at the hands of New York state officials. While the story has predictably become a partisan bickering match, I think there’s a deeper problem with what happened to Peanut that should spark multi-partisan concern. If anything, people of any party who care about environmental protection and clean technology should be condemning the killing more than anybody.

Why Are People Arguing Over A Squirrel?

Before I can get into why the story matters, I need to share the story so that we can all be on the same page.

It all started seven years ago when a man in New York found a baby squirrel that had been orphaned. It was too young to survive on its own, and the mother had been killed, so there was no way to realistically re-wild the animal (as wild as animals in New York City can be, anyway). Unable to bear the thought of the little squirrel dying, the man nursed the squirrel back to health, raising it to adulthood.

Because it took so long to get the squirrel to viability, it had become far too comfortable not only with being fed, but being in the presence of people. So, even at adulthood, he couldn’t turn the squirrel back out into the trees at a park or something. He elected to keep it as a pet to keep it alive. He had also become attached to it, and it to him.

Eventually, he started an Instagram and other social media channels, showing people the fun he has with his squirrel. It became a big hit, with Peanut and his dad getting over 500,000 followers.

Mindless Enforcement

Sadly, it was illegal to rescue Peanut and keep him as a pet. It’s a law that doesn’t get enforced that often, and many people have no idea that the law prohibits keeping wild animals as pets in some states. But some Karen in another state was offended at the sight of a pet squirrel and called the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to report this “crime.”

Along with a second rescued raccoon, the animals were seized in an armed raid of the man’s apartment, traumatizing his family. The animals were then taken away and killed by the agency.

A Better Way: Prosecutorial Discretion

Yes, what the guy did with the raccoon and the squirrel was illegal under New York law. It would be stupid to deny that. But, at the same time, no law is ever enforced 100% of the time. Because enforcement resources are limited and common sense dictates that other actions are often the better way, police and regulators of all kinds have the discretion to decide how to handle each case.

Sometimes, enforcement action is needed. Other times, a warning is the right way forward. It’s also possible for enforcement agencies to educate violators and help bring them into compliance instead of coming down hard. Ultimately, the goal of all of these options is to further the purpose of the agency (in this case, protecting animals and the environment) and not to run up numbers or get public attention.

In fact, this basic idea goes back to Sir Robert Peel, the founder of one of the first policing agencies globally. He taught this principle: “To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.”

While the law can’t give famous people better treatment than non-famous people, government agents should consider that this was a great opportunity to bring more people into compliance with relevant wildlife laws nationwide. If NYSDEC had helped him fill out the appropriate paperwork and get into compliance with the law, they could have also partnered with him in making a video educating the 500,000 fans on how they, too, can do this the right way. Had they done this, the result would have been awesome.

This Sets Back Efforts To Actually Protect The Environment

I know some readers don’t want to admit that NYSDEC did anything wrong, largely because the Republicans are trying to turn this senseless act of “enforcement” into a political issue and even an election issue. Before I go on, I want to be clear: I don’t support that. I think people like the Trump family, the eyeliner-wearing VP candidate, and all of the other people trying to blame this on Kamala Harris are just as mindless and idiotic as NYSDEC.

The simple fact is that this was a state agency. For those unfamiliar or who pretend to be unfamiliar, there’s a concept in US law called federalism. State governments enjoy a great deal of independence from the federal government because they are sovereign states that have entered into an arrangement for mutual defense and resource sharing. To attempt to pin this on a federal official (VP Harris) is ignorant at best and deeply dishonest at worst.

That having been said, people of every or no party should be upset about this, especially those of us who care about environmental protection (ostensibly the reason NYSDEC exists). Why? Because mindless killing of this sort gives the whole environmental protection enterprise a bad name.

Few environmentalists want to violate anybody’s rights, implement a communist dictatorship, and mindlessly kill in the name of the environment. When some unthinking state agents go and kill a pet who had 500,000 fans on social media, they’re sending the message that environmentalists are, in fact, evil people who care more about preserving the power of the state than protecting actual animals.

Worse, when people who claim to be environmentalists defend this stupidity and evil, it confirms the fears people have about environmental policy. When far right figures are trying to cast us all as evil, defending evil out of some misguided need to defend Kamala Harris plays right into their hands!

If we’re smart at all, we’d all be against this and call out NYSDEC for this. We should all be calling for reforms in how these cases are handled, with education and animal safety being the key goal instead of mindless rule-following and power flexing.

Featured image: an AI-generated meme floating around social media protesting the death of Peanut. (fair use)