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By "almost zero", there has literally never been confirmed case of squirrel-to-human rabies transmission. It's not the same level of literally impossible as doing the same to a possum, who just can't get the disease, but it's extremely hard to read as anything but a pretext such that any challenge to the 'investigation' would be moot.
As... evidenced by the bit where they euthanized the raccoon, too. Though from what I can find, it looks like that the DEC started with the raccoon and the squirrel was a side benefit.
The whole thing is fractally stupid. There's a layer on top of things where I'd love to debate the merits of laws against keeping wildlife as pets -- tbf, they don't make good pets! But given that the laws are near-always originally meant for more like Florida Man Tiger King bullshittery and inevitably turn into a vehicle for various 'born free' morons to euthanize squirrels and ferrets on their way to eliminating cats. But New York, at least on the books, doesn't ban this: there's a mess of licensing for 'exhibition' of 'dangerous animals' like the raccoon. The potential for handling these matters exists, the government just didn't want to handle it like mature adults.
I expect some of that's the squirrel's owner being a bit of a putz, but 'we just abuse power when the target is kinda annoying'.
But like the recent revelations in the Penny case, that's kinda the point. There's no putting the toothpaste back into the tube, here; there is no meaningful way to challenge it.
Of course, Joe Exotic’s menagerie was entirely legal. He’s in prison for putting a hit on Carol Baskin.
As it turns out, the law is no deterrent to sufficiently motivated crazy people- they’re more willing to jump through hoops to do the supremely retarded things they can’t get away with just ignoring the law on.
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I couldn't find a justification for the "eliminating cats" claim on that thread.(Some) Bird people certainly want to make outdoor cats illegal, but I haven't seen anyone want to actually eliminate all cats.
Off topic, but unfortunately TNR somehow fails to reduce feral cat populations (I don't have a cite for this off the top of my head, but I read it in Cat Sense). I don't have a problem with people letting their cats out, at least in the US (although we should recognize that the density of cats in residential neighborhoods is much greater than the density of the wild felids that lived there before, so the bobcat comparison is unconvincing).
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