RIP Peanut the squirrel, an internet-famous critter who has become the latest entry into the niche but expanding quiz category I have termed Unconventional Emotional Support/Educational Animals Who Have Met Unfortunate Ends.
Previous entrants to this hall of fame include Pebbles, an emotional support dwarf hamster, who got flushed down an airport toilet after her owner was told the animal couldn’t accompany her on a Spirit Airlines flight to Florida in 2018. I don’t know what sort of person decides to flush a hamster, but I imagine the former owner is working in politics now.
Then there’s WallyGator, a 5½ft-long (1.68 metres) emotional support alligator, who was something of a fixture in Philadelphia. He used to love splashing around local fountains and was once denied entry to a Phillies baseball game. Poor Wally got kidnapped when his owner took him on vacation to Georgia – reportedly by “some jerk who likes to drop alligators off into someone’s yard to terrorise them”. A real life Where’s Wally? followed and the gator was found but mistakenly dropped in a very large swamp with other reptiles of his ilk. Experts in this sort of thing say chances of Wally being found are minimal.
Now for Peanut. If you’ve been distracted by other news you might have missed the squirrely shenanigans but, in short, Peanut was rescued by Mark Longo, a New Yorker, after the animal’s mother was run over by a car seven years ago. Peanut, who often sported jaunty miniature hats, lived with Fred the raccoon and a bunch of other rescue animals, and amassed a large social media following.
Longo was apparently in the process of filing paperwork to get Peanut certified as an educational animal when authorities raided his home and euthanised both the squirrel and Fred the raccoon because they were worried about the possible spread of rabies. Peanut’s fans are now foaming at the mouth and this already surreal story has sprouted a number of improbable and increasingly alarming subplots involving OnlyFans and a community-driven cryptocurrency called PNUT. In short: we live in hell. Peanut, you are in a better place now.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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