P’Nut the squirrel can’t rest in peace in NY — his headless body held by state as ‘evidence’

P’Nut can’t rest in peace.

The headless body of the world’s most famous squirrel is currently being held in a refrigerated room somewhere in upstate New York, The Post has learned.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is preserving it as “evidence” from its agents’ harried November raid on a home in Chemung County, where they seized P’Nut the Squirrel and his raccoon pal, Fred, and then euthanized the beloved pets, according to an agency spokesperson.

Their heads were cut off for rabies testing, which proved neither animal was infected with the deadly disease.

The whereabouts and status of the animals’ actual noggins, meanwhile, are entirely unknown.

A state Department of Health spokesperson refused to confirm the location of their remains or whether the critters had been shipped off to the agency’s Wadsworth Center rabies lab in Slingerlands, citing pending litigation by the animals’ grieving owner, Mark Longo. 

Longo had hoped get his pets’ bodies back for a formal burial and funeral.

He said he immediately put in a request for the remains but received only radio silence. 

“We filed paperwork for it, and that’s what kind of hurt the most — they didn’t answer to it,” he said.

Longo’s lawyer, Nora Constance Marino, said she fired off notices of preservation of evidence to the DEC and Chemung County sheriff’s office on Nov. 4, along with Elmira Animal Control and the Chemung County Health Department on Nov. 14. 

“I want and expect the bodies of Peanut and Fred, in their entirety, to be returned to my clients, even if they are in pieces,” she said. 

She said there are “evidentiary reasons” to preserve P’Nut and Fred’s corpses, but that Longo and his wife also “should be able to have the bodies of their beloved animals … for whatever sentimental sendoff they deem appropriate.” 

DEC agents stormed Longo’s 350-acre property, where he and his wife run an animal sanctuary, on Oct. 30.

Officials seized P’Nut, who the couple had taken in as a household pet seven years ago after his mother was killed by a car, and recent rescue Fred.

Officials claimed P’Nut and Fred had to be euthanized for rabies tests because the squirrel bit an agent during the raid.

But, as The Post previously reported, documents show the animals had been slated for death and decapitation at least seven days before the slipshod operation, which has been widely criticized as a tragic example of government overreach. 

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Edward R. Rensimer previously told The Post there was “virtually zero” chance P’Nut had rabies, and said officials could have figured out whether the squirrel or raccoon had the deadly disease without killing the animals.