A New York man who turned a rescued squirrel into a social media star called Peanut is pleading with state authorities to return his beloved pet after they seized it during a raid that also yielded a raccoon named Fred.
Multiple anonymous complaints about Peanut — also spelled P’Nut or PNUT — brought at least six officers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to Mark Longo’s home near the Pennsylvania border in rural Pine City on Wednesday, Longo said.
“The DEC came to my house and raided my house without a search warrant to find a squirrel!” said Longo, who is 34. “I was treated as if I was a drug dealer and they were going for drugs and guns.”
The officers left with Peanut, who amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms during his seven years with Longo.
They also took Fred, a more recent addition to the family.
A spokesperson for the DEC said in a statement that the agency started an investigation after receiving “multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets.”