A woman on TikTok has spoken out after being blamed for the death of a viral squirrel named Peanut.
For over seven years, social media star Mark Longo and his pet squirrel, Peanut, have amassed hundreds of thousands of views across Instagram, TikTok, and more.
Longo rescued the squirrel after its mother was struck by a car. It was released into the wild after eight months of care in his home, but the critter quickly returned to his house.
On Wednesday, October 30, Longo revealed that Peanut and another animal in his care were seized by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. A representative for the DEC says the agency began to investigate his ownership of the animals after “multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets.”
Per NY’s state law, residents are not allowed to own a wild animal without a license. Longo said he was in the process of acquiring this license when Peanut was taken.
Just two days later, the content creator revealed Peanut was euthanized by the DEC so they could test the animal for rabies. The news quickly took over social media, and users discovered that a woman named Monica Keasler had allegedly reported Longo for owning Peanut.
According to various posts, Keasler allegedly posted a video on TikTok saying it was her “right” to report Longo to the DEC before making her account private.
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Another similarly named woman, Monica Kessler, said she’s been receiving death threats and other hateful comments from people thinking she’s the one who reported Longo to the DEC.
“What up TikTok, it’s the most hated girl on the internet,” she said to start the video. “For all the wrong reasons. [I do not have] the same last name. If you open a video, and you’re going to comment anything hateful, it takes two seconds to see many many people have commented saying it’s not me.
“No, I didn’t have anything to do with a squirrel. Never reported a squirrel. Didn’t know anything about Peanut the squirrel until Saturday morning.”
She went on to explain that she’s received death threats and other hateful comments from people across social media thinking she’s the one that reported Mark Longo to the DEC.
“It’s a very sad situation, and my heart goes out to them. But it wasn’t me. And, was this really the way we thought we should handle it anyways? Sending death threats and hateful comments? And really just dumb comments by the way,” she said before hitting out at the grammar used by people leaving the negative remarks.
Longo’s not the only influencer to have been caught by the authorities for handling wildlife, either. Back in October, an Instagram model faced charges up to $26,000 for feeding an entire rotisserie chicken to a crocodile.