{"id":426,"date":"2024-11-07T03:10:35","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T03:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/momentsunfolded.com\/?p=426"},"modified":"2024-11-07T03:11:18","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T03:11:18","slug":"the-story-of-peanut-the-squirrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/momentsunfolded.com\/archives\/426","title":{"rendered":"The story of Peanut the Squirrel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In2017, Mark Longo, an electrical engineer in his early 30s, was living in New York City and saw a squirrel had been run over by a car. She\u2019d left a baby behind.\n

\u201cAs I got closer, a little black ball of fuzz crawled up my leg,\u201d Longo\u00a0recalled. He took the squirrel home. He thought to raise it, then release it?\n

But \u2018Peanut\u2019 became domesticated, like his cat. And Longo had an idea for a business. He\u2019d film himself masturbating and sell it on OnlyFans, with scenes with his pet squirrel.\n\n\n

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By 2022, Longo was the established porn actor known as \u2018Squirrel Daddy\u2019.\n

His OnlyFans\u00a0tagline: \u201cPeanut\u2019s dad, VERY kinky player \ud83d\ude08\ud83d\udd25\u201d Sometimes he listed the squirrel\u2019s name as \u2018Pnut\u2019, which seems in this context a sexual reference, i.e. evoking \u2018penis\u2019 and \u2018nut\u2019, which is slang for ejaculation.\n

Longo is said to live with his wife, Daniela, on a rural, farm-like property in Pine City, New York. Is she his unseen photographer?\u2014recording her husband out displaying his penis, his asshole, etc., all in a\u00a0very gay style.\n

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Then Peanut was also the focus of cute and cuddly scenes in TikTok videos, or on Instagram.\n

Mark and Peanut were adorable together, staged like a father coming home to the squirrel this childless man had \u201crescued.\u201d\n

These appearances, on reflection, were ads for his porn account. He offered Peanut the squirrel as his fun, sweet pet \u2014 while he allured with his body. Maybe you\u2019d pay to see more?\n\n\n

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Longo was covered in mainstream media.\n

He presented Peanut as having a denatured sexual character. \u201cUsually, when they mature, after eight months to a year, you see the aggression, you can see the hormones, but Peanut didn\u2019t have it,\u201d he\u00a0said.\n

He\u2019d narrate a scene of having tried to release Peanut into the wild, only to see the squirrel arriving at his back door, having lost half his tail in a fight.\n

\u201cSo here I am, balling my eyes out, like I failed you as your human,\u201d as Longo\u00a0told\u00a0USA Today. \u201cAnd I kind of opened the door, he ran inside, and that was the last of Peanut\u2019s wildlife career.\u201d\n

The use of \u201ccareer\u201d there is interesting.\n

As I consider Longo\u2019s accounts, I find that I often disbelieve him. And certainly his suggestion he tried to let Peanut go seems unlikely. The squirrel had become his livelihood.\n

And Longo didn\u2019t\u00a0film\u00a0the supposed parting scene.\n

That he was a porn star, and Peanut a prop in his act, was always clear. It was covered in various newsy sites.\n

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Meanwhile, Longo opened an \u2018animal sanctuary\u2019 in 2023.\n

Or he said he did. As often with Longo\u2019s accounts, the details are vague and strange. Was the location of the \u2018sanctuary\u2019 Longo\u2019s personal home in Pine City?\u2014now designated as a non-profit to accept donations.\n

The\u00a0website\u00a0has no physical address, and visitors are not allowed.\n

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P\u2019Nuts Freedom Farm PayPal donation portal\n

Peanut was the focus of \u201cmultiple anonymous complaints.\u201d\n

That is one\u00a0presentation\u00a0of the facts in mainstream media. I was interested in the history of Longo\u2019s interactions with state officials, but he hasn\u2019t discussed any of that\u2014only the now-famous scene.\n

On Wednesday, October 30th, officers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) raided Longo\u2019s \u201csanctuary.\u201d Longo\u2019s details shift between accounts. Sometimes there were six officers.\n

\u201cAnd 10 to 12 DEC officers raided my house as if I was a drug dealer,\u201d he\u00a0narrated\u00a0to FoxNews. \u201cI sat outside my house for five hours. I had to get a police escort to my bathroom.\u201d\n

Peanut is said to have bitten an officer.\n

Without quoting sources or identifying any officials, the FoxNews story says that Peanut was \u201ceuthanized\u201d for rabies testing. But\u00a0squirrels don\u2019t spread rabies, and a raccoon that Longo kept was also killed.\n

Longo quickly set up a Gofundme account, seeking $120,000, at first for legal aid to secure Peanut\u2019s release, then for the upkeep of his \u2018rescued\u2019 animals. The heartbreak of he and his wife was\u00a0reported\u00a0as extreme.\n

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\u201cDespite our passionate outcry for compassion, the agency chose to ignore our pleas, leaving us in deep shock and grief.\u201d\n\n

Then he took to tabloid media.\n

It was a story ready for TMZ: a beautiful man and his pet squirrel. Longo supplied new details, like that the government agents had been so intrusive and overbearing as to check his\u00a0wife\u2019s immigration status.\n

I wondered to myself: Did a gay guy buy a mail-order blonde bride as heterosexual cover, getting her to film his sex show starring a rodent?\n

With Peanut dead, she might be out of a job.\n

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