Thanks, I hadn't seen this update.

In this news story you link we see the DEC was in fact saying that Peanut was killed in order to test the corpse for rabies. Squirrels don't even carry rabies. Also, their story is that employees trained in wildlife care were unable to handle a domesticated squirrel without instigating the events leading to its death. And none of these incompetent people were fired?

Longo clearly believed Peanut was unable to survive in the wild, so we see that he was left without any recourse to save Peanut's life except misleading the investigators, not realizing they were surveilling him. A very dark day for New York, whose legal system is an international embarrassment and is squarely to blame for the second Trump presidency.