Bill calling for ability to own gray squirrels, raccoons as pets sparks debate
Feb. 19—The fate of P'Nut the gray squirrel and Fred the raccoon — wild animals that became illegal domestic pets in upstate New York — moved 11 Republican lawmakers who want to make New Hampshire a state that would allow them to become "companion" animals.
In October, New York officials confiscated and euthanized both animals after the squirrel bit a wildlife investigator who responded to anonymous complaints.
Mark Longo had kept the squirrel for seven years in his rural Pine City home along the Pennsylvania border, and he said it returned after he tried to release it back into the wild.
Both animals tested negative for rabies after they were euthanized.
P'Nut and Fred had become viral hits on social media with 911,000 followers on Instagram that raised more than $230,000 on a GoFundMe page to try to save them.
New Hampshire state Rep. James Spillane, R-Deerfield, said his bill (HB 251) would require that such animals be vaccinated and kept as pets only if a licensed wildlife rehabilitator judged them unable to survive in the wild.
"It's very possible someone could have these pets and move here, and being illegal, the authorities here would have to come there and kill them. We don't want the same black eye New York has," Spillane told the House Environment and Agriculture Committee.
State wildlife and disease control experts opposed the bill, as did some animal-rights advocates who warned it would upend the natural order and put unwitting citizens at risk of significant health risks.
"This bill threatens public health and safety and continues the dangerous trend of keeping wild animals as domestic pets," said Kurt Ehrenberg, state director of the New Hampshire Humane Society. "Keeping wild animals as pets is cruel to the animals themselves."
Legal in some states
According to the World Population Review, you can own a squirrel as a pet without any paperwork in 13 states, mostly in the far West and South.
Massachusetts allows residents to own flying squirrels, not regular squirrels, while Maine and Rhode Island allow them to be owned if the person gets a state permit.
Vermont and Rhode Island are among 19 states that allow citizens to own a raccoon.
Spillane's bill would let someone moving to New Hampshire to bring a gray squirrel or a raccoon from a state where they were legal without interference as long as the pet is up to date on vaccines.
Don Bergeron, a natural sciences manager in the wildlife program at N.H. Fish and Game, said the agency believes these animals should be euthanized if they can't be released back into the wild.
In rare cases, Bergeron said, the state has let a wildlife rehabilitator keep a wild animal as a pet for exhibit or educational purposes.
For example, Fish and Game confiscated a wild fawn that became so domesticated it would walk into its private owner's garage. That deer now lives at the Squam Lake Education Center in Holderness, Bergeron said.
Colleen Smith, chief of the state Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, said there are no approved vaccines for raccoons so, even if given a rabies shot meant for a cat, the animals still could infect their owners or other pets.
"Once a human or animal develops rabies symptoms, there is no cure and no treatment, resulting in death nearly 100% of the time," Smith wrote in testimony against the bill.
Spillane noted that 15 years ago many state officials opposed a law that allowed the public to keep ferrets as pets, and residents can own rats as pets without a permit.
"I don't think it would be much of a problem," Spillane said.
The bill would not allow residents to take a red squirrel as a pet.
"Red squirrels do not adapt to becoming pets at all," Spillane added. "They are very wild unlike the gray squirrel that can be domesticated."
klandrigan@unionleader.com
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