TThe death of Peanut, an Instagram-famous squirrel who was euthanized after being confiscated from his New York home last week, has become an unlikely election motif for Republicans as it is the latest in a series of bizarre incidents in the There is a connection with animals that have shaped this presidential election campaign.

Outrage has boiled over in conservative circles over Peanut's death last week at the hands of New York wildlife officials. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, said that Donald Trump was “enraged” by the incident and that “Democrats murdered him.” Elon Musk from Squirrel”.

At a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, he added: “The same government that doesn't care about hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant criminals coming into our country doesn't want us to have pets.”

Musk himself, the billionaire Trump supporter, said on Joe Rogan's podcast on Monday that the death of Peanut, who was killed along with a raccoon named Fred, “should really mobilize people out there.” I hope that people just go out and vote for Peanut if nothing else. Just vote.” Musk discussed the issue at length with Rogan, another Trump supporter, and mused, “If they can do that to your pets, what do you think they can do to you?”

Peanut was kidnapped from Mark Longo's home in Pine City, New York, on Wednesday after he allegedly bit the finger of a wildlife officer who had inspected the animal's care in the seven years since Longo adopted him. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), it is illegal to keep a squirrel as a pet in New York, and Peanut was euthanized along with Fred to test for rabies.

Such was the uproar over Peanut, who had about 720,000 followers on Instagram, where he posed for photos wearing various hats, that the DEC allowed its employees to work from home on Monday and Tuesday after his offices were bombed at least 10 times were exposed to threats. A GoFundMe for Peanut has already raised around $200,000 for “P'nuts Freedom Farm, which tirelessly rescues and cares for endangered animals.”

The incident, raised by Republicans from a bizarre state officialdom to a matter of national concern as the US heads to the polls on Tuesday, rounds out a series of unusual animal-themed occurrences that are shaping the election campaign between Trump and Kamala Harris in several ways In terms of wild.

During the only televised debate between Trump and Harris in September, Trump repeated debunked claims that Haitian migrants were eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. “They eat the dogs, the people that came in, they eat the cats,” Trump said, sparking incredulity from debate moderators and Harris. “They eat the pets of the people who live there.”

The Springfield pet riot took place between two other, separate episodes in which dogs were killed. Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, revealed in a book that she shot her dog, Cricket, along with a “bad and mean” goat and three horses in a gravel pit. Then it emerged that Kevin Roberts, the man behind the right-wing Project 2025's controversial manifesto, admitted to killing a neighbor's pit bull with a shovel in 2004.

Not to be outdone, Robert Kennedy Jr., who is expected to be given sweeping powers over health and nutrition policy if Trump wins, revealed that doctors had previously found a dead worm in his brain, that he was hiding a dead bear in his car and smuggled him into New York's Central Park to make it appear as if he had been killed by a cyclist. He is being investigated for sawing off the head of a stranded whale and taking it home strapped to the roof of his minivan.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would flow into the windows of the car, and it was the most disgusting thing on the planet,” RFK Jr.'s daughter, Kick Kennedy, recalled in a 2012 interview about the incident happened years ago in 2012.

Fauna’s repeated forays into the election campaign “were all bizarre. I mean, Haitians eating cats, planting a dead bear in Central Park, Kristi Noem shooting a dog – it's all disturbing and bizarre,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and veteran animal rights activist.

Americans care deeply about animals, especially their pets, Pacelle said, but these incidents have not been used to advance animal welfare; Instead, they used other priorities, such as Trump's insults against immigrants.

“These are all strange isolated cases and not a larger narrative that could be told about animal welfare,” he said.

“It is a missed opportunity for politicians to address animal welfare issues, which are a universal issue for all voters. We have a big problem with animals in our society – we have factory farming, trophy hunting, we have puppy mills, cock and dog fighting. These are big problems and there is public will to do something about them. Instead we have this.”

Read more of the Guardian's coverage of the 2024 US election