At Anne’s Pancakes, a local breakfast spot in neighboring Elmira, residents strongly supported the squirrel – and the election results. “P’Nut is a hero, a symbol of the resistance. You don’t just take someone’s rescue pets and kill them,” said Peter Fleming.

“What kind of satanic s— is that?” Beside him, Jay Lee Williams said he doubted they were wild animals, as the government claimed. “They sounded domesticated to me. Why do they have the authority to do that?”

A few hours earlier, before the election results were announced, Macie Drake said at a bar in Elmira that she, too, doubted whether an indoor squirrel had rabies. And there were bigger questions. “Why do they send officers to a home when they could be dealing with bigger issues like immigration and homelessness?” she asked.

‘I’m just being friendly to a squirrel’

Jeremy Christian, 44, a union electrician, asked why the state had the authority to raid the Longos’ home. “If I want a pet squirrel, shut up.” The Democrats, he said, were “a bunch of pedophiles” in Washington DC.

“You’re doing whatever it is you’re doing and all I’m doing is being kind to a squirrel, I’m raising it as my child and you’re going to run into my house for it?” What are you going to do next? Loot my goldfish snacks? No. Stop it. I’m done.

“We call that abuse of power. We don’t want the government in our business. They’re just trying to control people.”

A woman who described herself as a teacher said, “People have gone crazy. Wild animals deserve to be wild. It’s a lot of fuss about nothing.”

Arlo Baker, a receptionist at the Chemung Department of Health, said she had received dozens of threatening phone calls about P’Nut, despite the department having nothing to do with animal management.

At Freedom Farm, Mark Longo reflected on the events of October 30 and remembered P’Nut as loving, curious and occasionally grumpy.

“Why did we need ten officials to carry out a five-hour raid? My wife immediately told them where the raccoon was. They knew Fred was in the closet. If he was such a danger, why didn’t they just eliminate him? Why did you search my closets? and not the cupboards in the rest of the house? Because I have a page that isn’t their thing?

“There is a big picture here and it is not about two small animals. It’s about individual freedoms. I was denied a fair trial and had my constitutional rights violated for a raccoon and a squirrel.