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The best air purifiers for pets, tested and reviewed

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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Without an air purifier for pets, our furry friends’ dander can get the better of us. As much as we love our animals, they are ripe with allergens, which can cause serious issues for those with sensitivities. But living with a cat or dog doesn’t have to result in misery for those with allergies, even in our own homes. We’ve chosen the Levoit Core P350 as the best overall air purifier for pets due to its mix of features for its price. The best air purifiers for pets offer multiple levels of filtration to capture everything from dander and other pet allergens to clumps of loose fur and even odors, getting rid of that wet dog smell.  Best overall: Levoit Core P350 Best splurge: Molekule Air Pro Best for large rooms: GermGuardian Air Purifier Best for small rooms: Molekule Air Mini+ Best budget: Winix A231 Tower H13 How we chose the best air purifiers for pets My household comprises a dog whose favorite thing is rolling in the grass, a cat, and a husband who is allergic to all three things. As a result, air purifiers are a must in our household to combat the constant barrage of allergens. When selecting the best air purifiers for pets, we prioritized devices with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, as these offer the best results for reducing allergens. We then looked at other filtration methods (some offer multiple varieties in a single air purifier), room size coverage, and odor-reducing features. Finally, we factored in device size, noise levels, and any additional features, such as timers and connectivity options. We based our selections on hands-on experience, customer feedback, and editorial reviews.  The best air purifiers for pets: Reviews & Recommendations Having pets in your home doesn’t mean you must be miserable and simply deal with allergies, thanks to air purifiers. Purifiers for pets can provide significant relief from the effects of dander and other allergens, like what gets tracked in the house after a long walk, and even get rid of those less-than-pleasant pet odors and floating fluff.  Best overall: Levoit Core P350 Pros Quiet Compact Plenty of settings and controls Pet Lock keeps settings from changing if it gets bumped Cons No app connectivity Specs Filter type(s): Fabric pre-filter, True HEPA filter, and activated carbon filter Maximum coverage area: Up to 218 square feet Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.7 x 14.2 inches Weight: 7.5 pounds The Levoit Core P350 earns our top slot thanks to its balance of features, design, quality, and price. Levoit purpose-built this air purifier for pets, as is evidenced by the Pet-Lock function to keep your furry friend from accidentally changing settings on the touchscreen display. It’s also a bonus in households with kids.  The Core P350 features a three-in-one filtration system. The Non-Woven Fabric Pre-Filter traps pet fur to reduce the amount of hair on your floors. The Efficient Activated Carbon Filter neutralizes pet odors to keep your home smelling fresh. It effectively removed the dog smell from my office, where the dog crate lives. And finally, the True HEPA filter cleans the air to remove allergens.  All three filter types are packed in a relatively compact package with a sleek, attractive design that will fit well in just about any space. It’s powerful enough to purify a 219-square-foot room in only 12 minutes, yet can produce as little as 24 decibels. Three fan modes allow you to fine-tune noise levels and cleaning effectiveness, and a night mode turns off lights so you can sleep without distractions.  The primary downside to the Core P350 is that it doesn’t pair with an app and doesn’t offer an air quality sensor. But at $130, it’s hard to beat all that this air purifier for pets has to offer.  Best splurge: Molekule Air Pro Pros Very quiet Automatic mode detects changes in air quality Six manual speeds offer lots of control Attractive design Tackles odors, smoke particles, dust, and more Cons Expensive Specs Filter type(s): PECO, True- HEPA, and carbon filters Maximum coverage area: Up to 1000 square feet Dimensions: 23.1 x 10.9 inches Weight: 22.9 pounds If thorough air-cleaning abilities, smart design, and broad coverage are of utmost importance, the Molekule Air Pro is your best bet. This larger air purifier for pets covers up to 1,000 square feet in rooms with ceilings up to eight feet. The modern design will look smart in your home, and the vegan leather handle makes it easier to move when cleaning a different room. The Air Pro features a True HEPA filter to capture 99.7 percent of small particles. A carbon filter removes odors and gases. But what makes it unique is the light-activated PECO technology, which destroys organic pollutants instead of simply trapping them. In 2023, scientists at the Florida International University published a preclinical study in Nature examining how PECO filters reduce allergic reactions to cat dander. The team found that the PECO filter was more effective at destroying cat dander, thus reducing allergy responses. The air in the room where I have my Air Pro definitely smells fresher since getting this purifier up and running.  On top of effective air purifying abilities, Molekule’s Air Pro is also extremely smart. Thanks to the built-in air quality sensor, it offers two automatic modes. One automatically adjusts the fan speed when it detects increased particles and chemical levels. When I burned some food while cooking, the fan spun up to clear out the smoke faster. The other automatic mode does the same, but silently. There are also six manual fan speeds, so you can take full control when you want. It operates at noise levels between 30-65 decibels, with the lowest level barely noticeable over normal white noise in your home.  The Molekule app is easy to navigate and provides daily and weekly air quality assessments. With the Air Pro, you can even break these down into specific pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, VOCs, and various particle sizes. It will remind you when to change filters, and you can subscribe to receive new filters automatically. The Air Pro is expensive, to be sure. But it is ripe with features, scientifically backed, and attractively designed. The steep price tag is the only reason this didn’t earn our best overall designation. Best for large rooms: GermGuardian Air Purifier Pros Cleans up to 1,760 square feet Three fan speed settings UV-C light reduces germs, viruses, and bacteria Removes odors Cons Two fan speeds are quite loud A bit bulky Specs Filter type(s): True HEPA, UV-C light, carbon pre-filter Maximum coverage area: Up to 1760 square feet Dimensions: 9.65 x 15.95 x 20.87 inches Weight: 13 pounds Large spaces require more robust air purifiers for pets. The GermGuardian can purify rooms up to 1,760 square feet, fitting the bill. In rooms that size, it can circulate the air one time per hour. Or, for faster cleaning, it can cycle the air 4.8 times per hour in 365-square-foot spaces. It features three levels of cleaning, including a True HEPA filter, a carbon pre-filter to remove odors and trap pet hair, and a UV-C light to reduce airborne germs.  The GermGuardian is roughly the size of a dehumidifier, though slightly more narrow. It will require some space, but since it’s made for large rooms, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue for most. It’s relatively affordable for the large coverage as well, which is nice to see. A night mode turns off the device’s lights. And an eight-hour auto-off timer keeps it from running unnecessarily.  Our main complaint with the GermGuardian is the fan speed settings. There is not much difference in noise between two levels, and both are quite loud. The third setting is barely noticeable, so we primarily keep it at this setting. Having more even differences between the three levels for more control would be nice. There are no sensor or automatic controls, so you must manually change fan speeds. But, overall, it seemed to cut back on our allergies when running and effectively removed odors as well, which is appreciated.  Best for small rooms: Molekule Air Mini+ Pros Extremely quiet Pairs with the Molekule app  FDA-cleared as a medical device Compact and portable Cons Pricey for the size Specs Filter type(s): PECO, True- HEPA, and carbon filters Maximum coverage area: Up to 250 square feet Dimensions: 8.26 x 8.26 x 12 inches Weight: 7.3 pounds The Molekule Air Mini+ is essentially a smaller version of the Air Pro mentioned above. It features the same proprietary PECO-HEPA Tri-Power to purify air from various allergens and pollutants effectively. Like the Air Pro, the Air Mini+ is DA-cleared as a 510(k) Class II medical device to destroy viruses, bacteria, and mold.  The Air Mini features a particle sensor to detect and track PM2.5 levels over time, which you can view in the app. The automatic mode spins up the fan as needed, adapting to the current conditions in your room. Or you can manually adjust with five different speed settings, resulting in noise levels from 39 to 62 decibels.  This compact air purifier for pets can purify up to 250 square feet. We’ve had ours in our bedroom and have noticed much-improved allergies while trying to sleep. The vegan leather handle makes it easy to move if you need to bring it from room to room with you. Although the PECO filter is light-activated, it is very dim and doesn’t cause much of a glow in a dark room at night. There are controls on the top of the device that are easy to use, or you can change settings via the Molekule app as well. Overall, it’s a sleek, effective little air purifier. Best budget: Winix A231 Tower H13 Pros Washable pre-filter saves money Carbon filter reduces odors Automatic mode with built-in sensor and air quality indicator Offers a dedicated sleep mode Cons Fairly loud, even on lower settings Specs Filter type(s): Washable fine mesh pre-filter, activated carbon filter, True HEPA filter Maximum coverage area: Up to 230 square feet Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.5 x 14.6 inches Weight: The Winix A231 offers quality air purification even for those on a tight budget. And despite the friendly price, it still has plenty of features, making it our best value pick. Most notable for an air purifier for pets at this price is the built-in sensor and automatic mode. Plus, the air quality indicator will alert you to changes in air quality with different light colors on the top of the device.   This Winix air filter features three levels of purification. The True HEPA filter captures 99.97 percent of airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns in size. The carbon filter reduces odor-causing VOCs to keep your room smelling fresh. A washable fine mesh pre-filter traps larger airborne particles, including pet hair. We love to see a washable design since it saves you money and reduces the environmental impact.  Unique to this air purifier is the Winnix PlasmaWave Air Cleaning Technology, which can be turned on or off. Winix says this acts as a permanent filter to break down odor, allergens, chemical vapors, and other pollutants. Unfortunately, users have reported that it is loud even on the lowest fan speed, though the sleep mode does provide quiet operation. But for the price, you’ll be hard-pressed to find as many features or quality in other options. Things to consider when shopping for the best air purifiers for pets Air purifiers for pets can vary from extremely simple devices with just a few settings to tech-heavy options with all sorts of fancy features. No matter what variety you are looking for, there are some key things to look out for to ensure you get a quality purifier that will actually clean your air.  Filter types The most important aspect of any air purifier is the thing doing the purifying—the filters. High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters are the best available, so prioritize air purifiers with this type of filter for best results. That’s because HEPA filters can remove 99.97 percent of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, or any other airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns, according to the EPA.  However, you’ll want to pay close attention to HEPA filter mentions on air purifier listings. There are True HEPA filters, which are highly effective. But there are also HEPA-like filters, which are not certified to meet the standards mentioned by the EPA.  Many air purifiers rely on multiple types of filters, so there are other filter types to pay attention to—some feature activated carbon filters, which work to reduce odors. For households with pets, this may be an extremely important feature. If you have extra furry friends that make it impossible to keep up with vacuuming, look for devices with a pre-filter, which will catch loose hair to prevent it from blocking up the HEPA filter. Some air filters also feature a UV light to kill airborne bacteria.  Room size As with any air filter, manufacturers build pet air purifiers for specific room sizes. This will be listed in square footage. A small purifier meant for a 350-square-foot room won’t work well in a vast, open space. On the other hand, a large air purifier meant for over 1,000 square feet will be overkill for a tiny bedroom. Be sure to consider where you will put the filter and roughly how many square feet it is before selecting. Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) refers to the volume of filtered air an air purifier delivers. The CADR is broken into separate scores for tobacco smoke, pollen, and dust. The CADR of your air purifier should be equivalent to at least two-thirds of the room’s area, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). For example, for a 120-square-foot room, it “would be best to have an air cleaner with a smoke CADR of at least 80.”  Using an air purifier with a CADR number larger than two-thirds of the room’s square footage simply means that it will clean the air more often and faster, which isn’t bad. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers will list CADR numbers. But it is worth checking to see if they are provided.   Replacement filter cost To keep your filter working, you’ll need to replace filters occasionally. Some are reusable, though they will still require proper cleaning. If you are on a budget, be sure to factor in the cost of replacement filters on top of the initial cost of the air purifier for pets. Some companies, such as Molekule, offer subscription services to send you new filters when it’s time automatically. If you tend to forget such things, you may want to opt for a device with a subscription service to keep your air clean.  Noise levels Air filters use a fan to pull air through a filter, inevitably producing noise. Some are louder than others, though. Manufacturers will occasionally list decibel levels; if noise is a concern for your household, check to see if the decibel level is provided on the models you are considering.  Luckily, many devices provide multiple fan levels. That means you can turn it up when you want a boost of cleaning and then lower the fan noise when you are trying to watch TV. You can even find models with specific sleep modes to keep the volume down when it’s time for bed. Additional features Beyond the necessities, you may find additional features on air purifiers for pets that could be of interest. Some offer timers so that you aren’t constantly running the unit. Others feature air quality sensors to keep you aware of the air quality in a given room. Others provide app connectivity with reminders to change filters, remote control features, and more.  FAQs Q: Do air purifiers really work for pets? Yes, air purifiers are effective at removing pet-related allergens. A 2022 study found that “air filtration was effective in removing mites, cat and dog allergens and also particulate matter from ambient indoor air, offering a fast and simple solution to mitigate allergen exposome. Q: Do air purifiers remove pet smells? Certain air purifiers remove pet smells, but not all. Pet odors are the result of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The molecules in VOCs are too small for HEPA filters, so an air purifier with only that variety of filtration will not remove the odors. However, an air purifier with a carbon filter will trap odors to remove them from the air. If pet odors are a significant concern, a purifier with a carbon filter will be crucial. Keep in mind, though, that carbon filters need to be changed fairly frequently to maintain effectiveness. That cost can add up quickly.For an alternative to carbon filters, you may want to consider Molekule’s proprietary PECO technology. Intertek, a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), independently tested the PECO technology and found it to be effective against airborne chemicals. Q: Where do you put an air purifier for pets? There are a few things to consider when choosing a location for your air purifier. First, placing the purifier close to the pollutant source will make it more effective. For example, putting the air filter by a litter box, dog crate, or wherever your pet spends time will clean up the air before it has time to travel around your house.Second, you may want to place your air purifier where you spend most of your time so that you actually benefit from the clean air. If you suffer from bad allergies at night, a small air purifier for your nightstand may offer the most impact. Finally, air purifiers need airflow to do their job. Placing it against a wall can limit that and may even damage the device. Be sure to provide a little breathing room for the air purifier to function properly. Q: How do you maintain an air purifier? Each air filter will have different maintenance requirements. Some rely on reusable filters that need to be vacuumed or washed out. Others use disposable filters that need to be replaced every few months. The best air purifiers for pets will offer a light or app notification that alerts you when it’s time to change the filter, but consult your product manual to keep the device working as it should. Final thoughts on the best air purifiers for pets Best overall: Levoit Core P350 Best splurge: Molekule Air Pro Best for large rooms: GermGuardian Air Purifier Best for small rooms: Molekule Air Mini+ Best budget: Winix A231 Tower H13 As much as we love the animals in our lives, they put out an awful lot of allergens. Even those without serious allergies may suffer from minor reactions to all that dander and associated pollutants. The best air purifier for pets will keep the air clean even with a small zoo in your house, making it more comfortable and safer for everyone involved.  The post The best air purifiers for pets, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

Without an air purifier for pets, our furry friends’ dander can get the better of us. As much as we love our animals, they are ripe with allergens, which can cause serious issues for those with sensitivities. But living with a cat or dog doesn’t have to result in misery for those with allergies, even […] The post The best air purifiers for pets, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

Without an air purifier for pets, our furry friends’ dander can get the better of us. As much as we love our animals, they are ripe with allergens, which can cause serious issues for those with sensitivities. But living with a cat or dog doesn’t have to result in misery for those with allergies, even in our own homes. We’ve chosen the Levoit Core P350 as the best overall air purifier for pets due to its mix of features for its price. The best air purifiers for pets offer multiple levels of filtration to capture everything from dander and other pet allergens to clumps of loose fur and even odors, getting rid of that wet dog smell. 

How we chose the best air purifiers for pets

My household comprises a dog whose favorite thing is rolling in the grass, a cat, and a husband who is allergic to all three things. As a result, air purifiers are a must in our household to combat the constant barrage of allergens. When selecting the best air purifiers for pets, we prioritized devices with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, as these offer the best results for reducing allergens. We then looked at other filtration methods (some offer multiple varieties in a single air purifier), room size coverage, and odor-reducing features. Finally, we factored in device size, noise levels, and any additional features, such as timers and connectivity options. We based our selections on hands-on experience, customer feedback, and editorial reviews. 

The best air purifiers for pets: Reviews & Recommendations

Having pets in your home doesn’t mean you must be miserable and simply deal with allergies, thanks to air purifiers. Purifiers for pets can provide significant relief from the effects of dander and other allergens, like what gets tracked in the house after a long walk, and even get rid of those less-than-pleasant pet odors and floating fluff. 

Best overall: Levoit Core P350

Pros

  • Quiet
  • Compact
  • Plenty of settings and controls
  • Pet Lock keeps settings from changing if it gets bumped

Cons

  • No app connectivity

Specs

  • Filter type(s): Fabric pre-filter, True HEPA filter, and activated carbon filter
  • Maximum coverage area: Up to 218 square feet
  • Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.7 x 14.2 inches
  • Weight: 7.5 pounds

The Levoit Core P350 earns our top slot thanks to its balance of features, design, quality, and price. Levoit purpose-built this air purifier for pets, as is evidenced by the Pet-Lock function to keep your furry friend from accidentally changing settings on the touchscreen display. It’s also a bonus in households with kids. 

The Core P350 features a three-in-one filtration system. The Non-Woven Fabric Pre-Filter traps pet fur to reduce the amount of hair on your floors. The Efficient Activated Carbon Filter neutralizes pet odors to keep your home smelling fresh. It effectively removed the dog smell from my office, where the dog crate lives. And finally, the True HEPA filter cleans the air to remove allergens. 

All three filter types are packed in a relatively compact package with a sleek, attractive design that will fit well in just about any space. It’s powerful enough to purify a 219-square-foot room in only 12 minutes, yet can produce as little as 24 decibels. Three fan modes allow you to fine-tune noise levels and cleaning effectiveness, and a night mode turns off lights so you can sleep without distractions. 

The primary downside to the Core P350 is that it doesn’t pair with an app and doesn’t offer an air quality sensor. But at $130, it’s hard to beat all that this air purifier for pets has to offer. 

Best splurge: Molekule Air Pro

Pros

  • Very quiet
  • Automatic mode detects changes in air quality
  • Six manual speeds offer lots of control
  • Attractive design
  • Tackles odors, smoke particles, dust, and more

Cons

  • Expensive

Specs

  • Filter type(s): PECO, True- HEPA, and carbon filters
  • Maximum coverage area: Up to 1000 square feet
  • Dimensions: 23.1 x 10.9 inches
  • Weight: 22.9 pounds

If thorough air-cleaning abilities, smart design, and broad coverage are of utmost importance, the Molekule Air Pro is your best bet. This larger air purifier for pets covers up to 1,000 square feet in rooms with ceilings up to eight feet. The modern design will look smart in your home, and the vegan leather handle makes it easier to move when cleaning a different room.

The Air Pro features a True HEPA filter to capture 99.7 percent of small particles. A carbon filter removes odors and gases. But what makes it unique is the light-activated PECO technology, which destroys organic pollutants instead of simply trapping them. In 2023, scientists at the Florida International University published a preclinical study in Nature examining how PECO filters reduce allergic reactions to cat dander. The team found that the PECO filter was more effective at destroying cat dander, thus reducing allergy responses. The air in the room where I have my Air Pro definitely smells fresher since getting this purifier up and running. 

On top of effective air purifying abilities, Molekule’s Air Pro is also extremely smart. Thanks to the built-in air quality sensor, it offers two automatic modes. One automatically adjusts the fan speed when it detects increased particles and chemical levels. When I burned some food while cooking, the fan spun up to clear out the smoke faster. The other automatic mode does the same, but silently. There are also six manual fan speeds, so you can take full control when you want. It operates at noise levels between 30-65 decibels, with the lowest level barely noticeable over normal white noise in your home. 

The Molekule app is easy to navigate and provides daily and weekly air quality assessments. With the Air Pro, you can even break these down into specific pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, VOCs, and various particle sizes. It will remind you when to change filters, and you can subscribe to receive new filters automatically. The Air Pro is expensive, to be sure. But it is ripe with features, scientifically backed, and attractively designed. The steep price tag is the only reason this didn’t earn our best overall designation.

Best for large rooms: GermGuardian Air Purifier

Pros

  • Cleans up to 1,760 square feet
  • Three fan speed settings
  • UV-C light reduces germs, viruses, and bacteria
  • Removes odors

Cons

  • Two fan speeds are quite loud
  • A bit bulky

Specs

  • Filter type(s): True HEPA, UV-C light, carbon pre-filter
  • Maximum coverage area: Up to 1760 square feet
  • Dimensions: 9.65 x 15.95 x 20.87 inches
  • Weight: 13 pounds

Large spaces require more robust air purifiers for pets. The GermGuardian can purify rooms up to 1,760 square feet, fitting the bill. In rooms that size, it can circulate the air one time per hour. Or, for faster cleaning, it can cycle the air 4.8 times per hour in 365-square-foot spaces. It features three levels of cleaning, including a True HEPA filter, a carbon pre-filter to remove odors and trap pet hair, and a UV-C light to reduce airborne germs. 

The GermGuardian is roughly the size of a dehumidifier, though slightly more narrow. It will require some space, but since it’s made for large rooms, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue for most. It’s relatively affordable for the large coverage as well, which is nice to see. A night mode turns off the device’s lights. And an eight-hour auto-off timer keeps it from running unnecessarily. 

Our main complaint with the GermGuardian is the fan speed settings. There is not much difference in noise between two levels, and both are quite loud. The third setting is barely noticeable, so we primarily keep it at this setting. Having more even differences between the three levels for more control would be nice. There are no sensor or automatic controls, so you must manually change fan speeds. But, overall, it seemed to cut back on our allergies when running and effectively removed odors as well, which is appreciated. 

Best for small rooms: Molekule Air Mini+

Pros

  • Extremely quiet
  • Pairs with the Molekule app 
  • FDA-cleared as a medical device
  • Compact and portable

Cons

  • Pricey for the size

Specs

  • Filter type(s): PECO, True- HEPA, and carbon filters
  • Maximum coverage area: Up to 250 square feet
  • Dimensions: 8.26 x 8.26 x 12 inches
  • Weight: 7.3 pounds

The Molekule Air Mini+ is essentially a smaller version of the Air Pro mentioned above. It features the same proprietary PECO-HEPA Tri-Power to purify air from various allergens and pollutants effectively. Like the Air Pro, the Air Mini+ is DA-cleared as a 510(k) Class II medical device to destroy viruses, bacteria, and mold. 

The Air Mini features a particle sensor to detect and track PM2.5 levels over time, which you can view in the app. The automatic mode spins up the fan as needed, adapting to the current conditions in your room. Or you can manually adjust with five different speed settings, resulting in noise levels from 39 to 62 decibels. 

This compact air purifier for pets can purify up to 250 square feet. We’ve had ours in our bedroom and have noticed much-improved allergies while trying to sleep. The vegan leather handle makes it easy to move if you need to bring it from room to room with you. Although the PECO filter is light-activated, it is very dim and doesn’t cause much of a glow in a dark room at night. There are controls on the top of the device that are easy to use, or you can change settings via the Molekule app as well. Overall, it’s a sleek, effective little air purifier.

Best budget: Winix A231 Tower H13

Pros

  • Washable pre-filter saves money
  • Carbon filter reduces odors
  • Automatic mode with built-in sensor and air quality indicator
  • Offers a dedicated sleep mode

Cons

  • Fairly loud, even on lower settings

Specs

  • Filter type(s): Washable fine mesh pre-filter, activated carbon filter, True HEPA filter
  • Maximum coverage area: Up to 230 square feet
  • Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.5 x 14.6 inches
  • Weight:

The Winix A231 offers quality air purification even for those on a tight budget. And despite the friendly price, it still has plenty of features, making it our best value pick. Most notable for an air purifier for pets at this price is the built-in sensor and automatic mode. Plus, the air quality indicator will alert you to changes in air quality with different light colors on the top of the device.  

This Winix air filter features three levels of purification. The True HEPA filter captures 99.97 percent of airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns in size. The carbon filter reduces odor-causing VOCs to keep your room smelling fresh. A washable fine mesh pre-filter traps larger airborne particles, including pet hair. We love to see a washable design since it saves you money and reduces the environmental impact. 

Unique to this air purifier is the Winnix PlasmaWave Air Cleaning Technology, which can be turned on or off. Winix says this acts as a permanent filter to break down odor, allergens, chemical vapors, and other pollutants. Unfortunately, users have reported that it is loud even on the lowest fan speed, though the sleep mode does provide quiet operation. But for the price, you’ll be hard-pressed to find as many features or quality in other options.

Things to consider when shopping for the best air purifiers for pets

Air purifiers for pets can vary from extremely simple devices with just a few settings to tech-heavy options with all sorts of fancy features. No matter what variety you are looking for, there are some key things to look out for to ensure you get a quality purifier that will actually clean your air. 

Filter types

The most important aspect of any air purifier is the thing doing the purifying—the filters. High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters are the best available, so prioritize air purifiers with this type of filter for best results. That’s because HEPA filters can remove 99.97 percent of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, or any other airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns, according to the EPA. 

However, you’ll want to pay close attention to HEPA filter mentions on air purifier listings. There are True HEPA filters, which are highly effective. But there are also HEPA-like filters, which are not certified to meet the standards mentioned by the EPA. 

Many air purifiers rely on multiple types of filters, so there are other filter types to pay attention to—some feature activated carbon filters, which work to reduce odors. For households with pets, this may be an extremely important feature. If you have extra furry friends that make it impossible to keep up with vacuuming, look for devices with a pre-filter, which will catch loose hair to prevent it from blocking up the HEPA filter. Some air filters also feature a UV light to kill airborne bacteria. 

Room size

As with any air filter, manufacturers build pet air purifiers for specific room sizes. This will be listed in square footage. A small purifier meant for a 350-square-foot room won’t work well in a vast, open space. On the other hand, a large air purifier meant for over 1,000 square feet will be overkill for a tiny bedroom. Be sure to consider where you will put the filter and roughly how many square feet it is before selecting.

Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR)

Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) refers to the volume of filtered air an air purifier delivers. The CADR is broken into separate scores for tobacco smoke, pollen, and dust. The CADR of your air purifier should be equivalent to at least two-thirds of the room’s area, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). For example, for a 120-square-foot room, it “would be best to have an air cleaner with a smoke CADR of at least 80.” 

Using an air purifier with a CADR number larger than two-thirds of the room’s square footage simply means that it will clean the air more often and faster, which isn’t bad. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers will list CADR numbers. But it is worth checking to see if they are provided.  

Replacement filter cost

To keep your filter working, you’ll need to replace filters occasionally. Some are reusable, though they will still require proper cleaning. If you are on a budget, be sure to factor in the cost of replacement filters on top of the initial cost of the air purifier for pets. Some companies, such as Molekule, offer subscription services to send you new filters when it’s time automatically. If you tend to forget such things, you may want to opt for a device with a subscription service to keep your air clean. 

Noise levels

Air filters use a fan to pull air through a filter, inevitably producing noise. Some are louder than others, though. Manufacturers will occasionally list decibel levels; if noise is a concern for your household, check to see if the decibel level is provided on the models you are considering. 

Luckily, many devices provide multiple fan levels. That means you can turn it up when you want a boost of cleaning and then lower the fan noise when you are trying to watch TV. You can even find models with specific sleep modes to keep the volume down when it’s time for bed.

Additional features

Beyond the necessities, you may find additional features on air purifiers for pets that could be of interest. Some offer timers so that you aren’t constantly running the unit. Others feature air quality sensors to keep you aware of the air quality in a given room. Others provide app connectivity with reminders to change filters, remote control features, and more. 

FAQs

Q: Do air purifiers really work for pets?

Yes, air purifiers are effective at removing pet-related allergens. A 2022 study found that “air filtration was effective in removing mites, cat and dog allergens and also particulate matter from ambient indoor air, offering a fast and simple solution to mitigate allergen exposome.

Q: Do air purifiers remove pet smells?

Certain air purifiers remove pet smells, but not all. Pet odors are the result of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The molecules in VOCs are too small for HEPA filters, so an air purifier with only that variety of filtration will not remove the odors. However, an air purifier with a carbon filter will trap odors to remove them from the air. If pet odors are a significant concern, a purifier with a carbon filter will be crucial. Keep in mind, though, that carbon filters need to be changed fairly frequently to maintain effectiveness. That cost can add up quickly.

For an alternative to carbon filters, you may want to consider Molekule’s proprietary PECO technology. Intertek, a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), independently tested the PECO technology and found it to be effective against airborne chemicals.

Q: Where do you put an air purifier for pets?

There are a few things to consider when choosing a location for your air purifier. First, placing the purifier close to the pollutant source will make it more effective. For example, putting the air filter by a litter box, dog crate, or wherever your pet spends time will clean up the air before it has time to travel around your house.

Second, you may want to place your air purifier where you spend most of your time so that you actually benefit from the clean air. If you suffer from bad allergies at night, a small air purifier for your nightstand may offer the most impact. Finally, air purifiers need airflow to do their job. Placing it against a wall can limit that and may even damage the device. Be sure to provide a little breathing room for the air purifier to function properly.

Q: How do you maintain an air purifier?

Each air filter will have different maintenance requirements. Some rely on reusable filters that need to be vacuumed or washed out. Others use disposable filters that need to be replaced every few months. The best air purifiers for pets will offer a light or app notification that alerts you when it’s time to change the filter, but consult your product manual to keep the device working as it should.

Final thoughts on the best air purifiers for pets

As much as we love the animals in our lives, they put out an awful lot of allergens. Even those without serious allergies may suffer from minor reactions to all that dander and associated pollutants. The best air purifier for pets will keep the air clean even with a small zoo in your house, making it more comfortable and safer for everyone involved. 

The post The best air purifiers for pets, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

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Related News

Two teens and 5,000 ants: how a smuggling bust shed new light on a booming trade

Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic petsPoaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks. Continue reading...

Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.The samples of garden ants presented to the court. Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/ReutersThe cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.“We did not come here to break any laws. By accident and stupidity we did,” says Lornoy David, one of the Belgian smugglers.David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, pleaded guilty after being charged last week with wildlife piracy, alongside two other men in a separate case who were caught smuggling 400 ants. The cases have shed new light on booming global ant trade – and what authorities say is a growing trend of trafficking “less conspicuous” creatures.These crimes represent “a shift in trafficking trends – from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species”, says a KWS statement.The unusual case has also trained a spotlight on the niche world of ant-keeping and collecting – a hobby that has boomed over the past decade. The seized species include Messor cephalotes, a large red harvester ant native to east Africa. Queens of the species grow to about 20-24mm long, and the ant sales website Ants R Us describes them as “many people’s dream species”, selling them for £99 per colony. The ants are prized by collectors for their unique behaviours and complex colony-building skills, “traits that make them popular in exotic pet circles, where they are kept in specialised habitats known as formicariums”, KWS says.Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx during the hearing. Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/ReutersOne online ant vendor, who asked not to be named, says the market is thriving, and there has been a growth in ant-keeping shows, where enthusiasts meet to compare housing and species details. “Sales volumes have grown almost every year. There are more ant vendors than before, and prices have become more competitive,” he says. “In today’s world, where most people live fast-paced, tech-driven lives, many are disconnected from themselves and their environment. Watching ants in a formicarium can be surprisingly therapeutic,” he says.David and Lodewijckx will remain in custody until the court considers a pre-sentencing report on 23 April. The ant seller says theirs is a “landmark case in the field”. “People travelling to other countries specifically to collect ants and then returning with them is virtually unheard of,” he says.A formicarium at a pet shop in Singapore. Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty ImagesScientists have raised concerns that the burgeoning trade in exotic ants could pose a significant biodiversity risk. “Ants are traded as pets across the globe, but if introduced outside of their native ranges they could become invasive with dire environmental and economic consequences,” researchers conclude in a 2023 paper tracking the ant trade across China. “The most sought-after ants have higher invasive potential,” they write.Removing ants from their ecosystems could also be damaging. Illegal exportation “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits”, says KWS. Dino Martins, an entomologist and evolutionary biologist in Kenya, says harvester ants are among the most important insects on the African savannah, and any trade in them is bound to have negative consequences for the ecology of the grasslands.A Kenyan official arranges the containers of ants at the court. Photograph: Kenya Wildlife Service/AP“Harvester ants are seed collectors, and they gather [the seeds] as food for themselves, storing these in their nests. A single large harvester ant colony can collect several kilos of seeds of various grasses a year. In the process of collecting grass seeds, the ants ‘drop’ a number … dispersing them through the grasslands,” says Martins.The insects also serve as food for various other species including aardvarks, pangolins and aardwolves.Martins says he is surprised to see that smugglers feeding the global “pet” trade are training their sights on Kenya, since “ants are among the most common and widespread of insects”.“Insect trade can actually be done more sustainably, through controlled rearing of the insects. This can support livelihoods in rural communities such as the Kipepeo Project which rears butterflies in Kenya,” he says. Locally, the main threats to ants come not from the illegal trade but poisoning from pesticides, habitat destruction and invasive species, says Martins.Philip Muruthi, a vice-president for conservation at the African Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, says ants enrich soils, enabling germination and providing food for other species.“When you see a healthy forest … you don’t think about what is making it healthy. It is the relationships all the way from the bacteria to the ants to the bigger things,” he says.

Animals
Conservation
Forests

Belgian Teenagers Found With 5,000 Ants to Be Sentenced in 2 Weeks

Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at $9,200 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at $9,200 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks, a Kenyan magistrate said Wednesday.Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya’s main airport, said she would not rush the case but would take time to review environmental impact and psychological reports filed in court before passing sentence on May 7.Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house. They were charged on April 15 with violating wildlife conservation laws.The teens have told the magistrate that they didn’t know that keeping the ants was illegal and were just having fun.The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the case represented “a shift in trafficking trends — from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species.”Kenya has in the past fought against the trafficking of body parts of larger wild animals such as elephants, rhinos and pangolins among others.The Belgian teens had entered the country on a tourist visa and were staying in a guest house in the western town of Naivasha, popular among tourists for its animal parks and lakes.Their lawyer, Halima Nyakinyua Magairo, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her clients did not know what they were doing was illegal. She said she hoped the Belgian embassy in Kenya could “support them more in this judicial process.”In a separate but related case, Kenyan Dennis Ng’ang’a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen were charged after they were found in possession of 400 ants in their apartment in the capital, Nairobi.KWS had said all four suspects were involved in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, large and red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa.The ants are bought by people who keep them as pets and observe them in their colonies. Several websites in Europe have listed different species of ants for sale at varied prices.The 5,400 ants found with the four men are valued at 1.2 million Kenyan shillings ($9,200), according to KWS.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Animals
Conservation

Slither, by Stephen S. Hall, Explores Our Fear and Fascination around Snakes

 In a new book called Slither, Stephen S. Hall takes a deep dive into the biology and history of one of the most reviled animals.

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. People are funny about snakes. I remember being taught the rhyme, “Red touches black, you’re okay, Jack; red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow,” in elementary school—never mind the fact that we did not have coral snakes in New Jersey. My guest today has spent a lot of time exploring our cultural aversion to—and fascination with—snakes. Stephen S. Hall is a science writer and the author of seven books. He’s also a teacher of science communication at New York University, Rockefeller University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His latest book, Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World, is on sale now.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Thank you so much for coming in to chat. I’m really looking forward to it.Stephen S. Hall: My pleasure to be here. Thank you.Feltman: First question: Why snakes?Hall: There’s several answers to that question. One of them is that as a kid, like many kids, I caught snakes, brought them home, put them in terrariums in the garage until my mother screamed when they would get loose, and that sort of ended that experiment. I was always fascinated by them because they were so different from other animals—and also so beautiful. There was a real fascination and attraction there. But I wasn’t a herper; I didn’t go out and continue to collect snakes.What I did do is become a science writer, and probably in the 2000s and 2010s, when I was reading science journals like Science and Nature, I occasionally would run across these really interesting major research articles based on snakes, and I always sort of set them aside, thinking, “This is kind of interesting. I should gather a little pile on this.”The third piece of this explanation is that my agent suggested at one point, “Why don’t you do a book about an animal?” which I had never done before. And my first reaction was, “I’d only do a book about an animal that most people don’t like,” because I thought it’d be a really interesting challenge to try to change people’s minds. And as most people know snakes are not very popular. People do not like them—they’re afraid of them; they loathe them; there’re all these surveys that children detest snakes and adults detest snakes—and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to change people’s minds about a really interesting creature. Feltman: Very cool. Given your research for the book, how have our feelings about snakes evolved over time?Hall: One of the things that surprised me is: this deeply embedded loathing of snakes was not always the case. In fact, that was the later evolution from earlier cultures, and part of the fun of doing Slither was going back and seeing how ancient cultures perceive snakes, and they perceived them very differently.They were respected. They were venerated in some cultures. In, in early ancient Greek culture the snake was associated with healing. In Mesoamerican cultures the snake was associated with a kind of messenger that would go back and forth between humans and nature but also humans and the afterworld—the world of the nonliving, as it were. There was a great respect for these creatures. This was also true in ancient Egypt. And then [laughs] with the Garden of Eden story the snake got demonized and was blamed for human fallibility, human sin, and I think that changed a lot of perceptions.One of the goals that I was trying to accomplish here was to get people to rethink what snakes represent: Why did ancient people venerate them, and is there a way to reclaim that sense of respect for these otherwise disliked creatures?Feltman: Well, and what do you think it is about snakes that made them venerated, and what do you think it is about them that makes people feel so negatively towards them?Hall: In terms of the negative part they are so different from so many other creatures: They don’t have legs. They’re secretive. You can’t see them. They’re [laughs] extremely good at hiding. In fact, you know, there—it’s sort of a Darwinian badge of honor that they make themselves hard to see, with their camouflage skin, and coloration, and so on. So they represent a kind of extreme version of the other. And people also associate threat and danger with them, certainly with venomous snakes.One of the interesting things that came up in the research—it’s a really interesting theory called the snake-detection theory. This is advanced by a researcher at the University of California, Davis, named Lynne Isbell. Isbell argues that the necessity of spotting snakes in the wild as a self-preservation mechanism led to the creation of a much larger primate brain, which we humans have inherited as well. So she attributes human acuity in vision to spotting snakes in [an] evolutionary sense that was developed a long time ago.Feltman: Yeah, I’ve also seen that as an explanation for why cats are freaked out by cucumbers; I’ll have to fact-check that. But that’s not [laughs] anything I’ve—I’ve heard that theory brought up before in the context of cats running away from cucumbers [laughs], so.Hall: There’s some ingrained perception.Charles Darwin read a report by a German scientist—this is in the middle of the 19th century—that he had taken snakes to the monkey house in a zoo in Germany, and the monkeys went crazy just seeing that there was a snake in it when he revealed it. So Darwin puts a stuffed snake in a bag and goes to the London Zoo, and then he takes off the top, and all the monkeys go crazy, and he’d never seen a reaction like that. Then he went back with a live snake, and the same thing happened, and it was this sort of instantaneous reaction to the appearance of a snake, so there’s definitely an alarm system ...Feltman: Mm.Hall: We don’t need to say that it was fear, necessarily, although some people call it a “fear module,” but there’s an alarm system in spotting a snake that I think is connected to the alarm that many humans feel when they see a snake.Feltman: Sure, and speaking of Darwin’s kind of crude research, how has our scientific understanding of snakes changed over time?Hall: Scientists are belatedly using snakes as a nontraditional model organism.Feltman: Mm.Hall: You would think that there was not much you could learn from a snake, but they’ve actually discovered some remarkable qualities in snakes because they finally started paying attention to them with the advent of molecular biology. What used to be observed naturalistically—okay, a snake eats a large prey and digests it—and they would take x-rays of it, like, in the 1970s; that was how metabolism was explained. After genomics emerged and they did the genome of the snake after the Human Genome Project, they discovered that snakes, pythons, as a model organism activate a huge suite of genes from the moment that they have a meal. And they were particularly interesting organisms to study because—I facetiously kinda say they invented intermittent fasting [laughs]—but, but they could go for a year at a time without eating a single meal. And then they eat these enormous meals. So the equivalence was, like, a 150-pound human, for example, roughly, eating a 220-pound hamburger ...Feltman: Mm [laughs].Hall: “In one gulp.” That’s kind of what the meal of a python was like. How does an animal handle the digestion and processing of that? It turns out they activate all these genes that regenerate tissues in the body—a bigger heart, a bigger intestine—just to handle the [laughs] massive processing of this meal. And then they carve away all the regenerated tissue that they’ve created and go back to normal. So they have this ability to regenerate tissue, which, of course, is something we can’t do, except in a couple of isolated cases, and it became a really interesting thing to study.Another thing that’s really interesting is convergent evolution: this idea that animals can evolve the same traits, although they’re completely unrelated. So there was a study that came out a couple years ago on spitting cobras. The researchers established that three different lineages of cobras that were completely independent of each other each evolved the anatomical mechanism to spit venom—a physiological change. They evolved the behavior to aim the spit at the eyes of whatever it was that was threatening them.Feltman: Wow.Hall: And they independently evolved a change in their venom that produced excruciating pain in eyes. So independently all three of those different qualities were evolved in three different species of snakes that were completely unrelated to each other, in a sense. You couldn’t have found that out until you had genomics and very sophisticated molecular analysis of venom and all that stuff.Feltman: Yeah. What were some of the most surprising things that you learned in this project as someone who already really had a fondness for snakes?Hall: The thing that really impressed me is how adaptive snakes are, how rapidly they adjust to their environment; it’s one of their signal traits. They’re very diverse—it’s amazing that they can live on every continent except Antarctica, which means temperate, cold weather, tropical weather, jungle, seawater. If there’s a threat in the environment, they have these remarkably ingenious evolutionary adaptations to it. There’s a story of these sea snakes in, in the Pacific off New Caledonia that, in response to the pollution in the waters there, have developed melanistic characteristics—a darker coloration in their skin—because that sequesters all these toxic chemicals that are in the water and prevents it from harming the animal, and then they slough off their skin and they get rid of the chemicals. And it’s only in those snakes that are inhabiting that particular niche.This idea of being able to adapt to environmental challenge really struck me, not just because of the cleverness of the evolution or the selective process, but also, it’s a warning to us in terms of climate change and changes in the global meteorological systems. Snakes have a way of adapting to this that we don’t have, and maybe we can learn something from them. It’s really interesting that in the Mesoamerican cultures in particular, snakes were traditionally associated with meteorological events ...Feltman: Mm.Hall: So rain, lightning, thunderstorms, droughts, floods, and all of that being attached to agricultural fertility. And these are all issues that are front and center now because of climate change, and I think the ancients realized that snakes were symbols of coming to terms with both the unpredictability of nature and perhaps suggesting ways to adapt to it.I spoke to a very well-known Australian herpetologist named Rick Shine. He did fieldwork in [the mountains of] Tasmania, which has horrible weather, and there are snakes there, and, you know, he said there’s only 20 or 30 really nice sunny days there. And humans go there, and they think, “This is the most god-awful environment. How could anything live here?” And the snakes live under the rocks for all but those 20 or 30 days, and then they come out, and they think they’re living in the villa by the sea [laughs], and it’s just, it’s a sunny day for them; they don’t have the sense that it’s a bad environment because they adjust to it. And he had this wonderful observation—he just wondered what it felt like for a snake to emerge into the sunlight, warm up, have all its organ systems click on, its consciousness click on. He said, “That must be an amazing feeling.” And I thought that was a wonderful way of kind of capturing the uniqueness of these creatures.Feltman: Yeah, well, and speaking of that adaptation, what dangers are snakes facing these days?Hall: I would say the biggest danger’s habitat destruction. And there are a couple of anecdotes in the book—so I talk about when I caught snakes as a kid, and this was in a sort of exurban area of Michigan, outside Detroit. I went back to that area 50 years later to see how the habitat had changed, and all the places where you would catch turtles or you catch snakes or you would see them, it’s all changed: It’s been developed residentially. Population spread has confined the habitat.Thomas Cole, who’s a pretty famous Hudson River School painter, had made the point that a habitat destruction was something that needed to be addressed or, as he put it, we would lose Eden and wouldn’t be able to recover it again.Feltman: Why do you think people should care about snakes?Hall: I think it’s really important, when we talk about conservation, preservation of species, prevention of extinction, that we don’t only think about cute animals that everybody likes. It’s really important to globally embrace all creatures—including, in this case, that animal that is so different and so repulsive and historically so loathed by so many people—because if we pick and choose, we’re really not saving anything in terms of habitat or anything else.And it’s an acknowledgement that ecologies are complicated, that there are these very fragile webs, and it’s not just birds or mammals or snakes, but it’s the combination and interaction of these creatures that creates a vibrant and sustainable ecology. It’s really important to include everyone in our conservation arc, if you will.Feltman: Absolutely. Steve, thank you so much for coming on to talk to us, and I’m sure our listeners are really gonna love your book.Hall: Thank you very much for having me.Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget to check out Slither wherever you buy books. We’ll be back on Friday to learn how you can explore your urban or suburban neighborhood with all of the enthusiasm of a seasoned naturalist out in the wild.Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!

Animals
Chemicals
Conservation

Inside the Investigation, Seizure and Death of Peanut the Social Media Star Squirrel

New details are emerging about the seizure of Peanut the squirrel in upstate New York in October

New York environmental workers who came with a warrant looking for Peanut the squirrel found the scampering social media star on a bathtub. His housemate, Fred the raccoon, was in a suitcase in a bedroom closet.Soon after the Oct. 30 seizure, both animals were euthanized and Peanut became a martyr – held up as a symbol of government overreach by political candidates, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who invoked Peanut's name during a rally just days before the presidential election. State and Local officials were inundated with angry messages and even bomb threats.How did events in a sleepy corner of upstate New York snowball so dramatically? Records recently released under freedom of information requests show complaints about the P’nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary were initially treated with little urgency by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — but that changed in the weeks leading up to the fateful seizure amid new complaints and the reported arrival of raccoons to the sanctuary.Government officials laid the groundwork for euthanizing the animals so they could be tested for rabies in the days before the seizure. Yet a state employee also lined up a wildlife rehabilitator to take Peanut, if needed.A final phone call to discuss Peanut’s fate was made after the squirrel bit the gloved thumb of a wildlife biologist, according to records. Peanut, also known as P'nut, was the star of the sanctuary run by Mark Longo and Daniela Bittner in Southport near the Pennsylvania line. Online videos show the squirrel skittering on Longo’s shoulders, holding and eating waffles and wearing a tiny cowboy hat.Longo said he found Peanut years ago in New York City after the animal's mother was hit by a car. It’s against New York state law to possess a wild animal without a license, though Longo and Bittner took steps last year to become wildlife rehabilitators. Fred the raccoon was dropped off at the sanctuary last summer. The spirited interactions between the animals and their human companions racked up views — but documents show they also drew the attention of critics and state wildlife authorities.The DEC knew about the sanctuary since at least January 2024. “A report came in of a recent news story about this facility,” reads an incident report. “There are images of a non-releasable squirrel being referred to as a ‘pet’ and being dressed up and showcased for publicity reasons."One self-described wildlife rehabilitator and former neighbor emailed authorities multiple times with complaints about how the animals were being treated. In May, a conservation officer spoke to Longo and was told that Peanut and another baby squirrel were sent to Connecticut. Longo said in a recent interview that was true, but that Peanut later came back. When a fresh complaint came in that month, one officer wrote, “no judge will give us a search warrant for a squirrel.” “Unfortunately this isn’t a big crime, it is just a violation,” a conservation officer wrote in response to a complaint that summer. “Mark won’t let me into his house without a search warrant. There is just nothing more I can do at this point. I am sorry.” Views shifted by October amid more complaints and the arrival of Fred the raccoon — a species that can carry and transmit rabies. One correspondent alleged Longo was “keeping a raccoon in a small cage in his house. I follow him on TikTok."DEC workers viewed videos on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram and reached out to the Chemung County health department. State environmental officials asked a county health official if they recommend testing animals for rabies “as a precaution for human safety.” That would require the animals to be killed so brain tissue could be examined.The county, in turn, checked with a state health department expert, who advised the animals would need to be tested if there was any potential of rabies exposure. A week before the search, the county emailed the DEC: “We fully expect that all ‘wild’ animals in the home will need to be euthanized and sent for rabies testing due to the nature of the human contact.”A judge signed a search warrant authorizing the seizure of illegally possessed wildlife. Peanut bites the hand that seizes it A team of about a dozen searchers converged on Longo's property around 10:30 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 30. Longo said the squirrel was taken to Connecticut, according to the incident report — though he later conceded to The Associated Press that was a lie in a highly stressful moment.Bittner revealed to searchers the raccoon was in an upstairs closet. Fred was in an open suitcase on the floor, which was zipped closed and moved to give workers room to transfer the raccoon into a carrier.Peanut's seizure was more dramatic. The squirrel bit the state wildlife biologist through a thick leather glove with a nitrile exam glove underneath. The worker had a bleeding wound, according to a DEC email.A “visibly upset” Longo pleaded with searchers not to take Peanut and said the squirrel was a large source of income for the farm, according to incident reports."He stated he knew we would be euthanizing it,” the report reads. Anger over Peanut's fate revolves around the belief by critics that he was needlessly killed.Longo believes euthanization was always on the government's agenda, citing the pre-search email indicating that testing on the animals was expected. Longo and Bittner said they did not witness anyone getting medical attention during the seizure.A DEC report indicates the agency took steps before the raid to place the squirrel with a wildlife rehabilitator, if needed “for temporay holding/rehabbing.” The agency also coordinated with local animal control in case animals needed to be euthanized.The documents suggest Peanut's fate was ultimately sealed at the end of the search, when a call was made to a county health department official about the “high profile” case. A state DEC worker recalled in a report that the person on the phone said “both animals should be tested as a precaution as she didn't want to chance it.” That's because both animals were in direct contact with people in the home and the squirrel bit someone. County officials have said they had to follow rabies protocols from the state. “Sad but it has to be done,” a county health official wrote in an email that afternoon. “The poor animals didn’t do anything wrong.”The rabies tests were performed quickly, though officials didn’t publicly disclose the negative results until almost two weeks later.By then, Peanut’s death had made headlines around the world.Bomb threats were made to the DEC buildings. Government inboxes filled up with emails containing invective like “BURN IN HELL,” “SHAME ON YOU!!!” A caller to the state left a message beginning, “I want to know exactly why you freaks killed Peanut the squirrel. You people are insane.”The DEC conducted an internal investigation after the seizure, eventually promising to add a new deputy commissioner for public protection and to develop a body-camera policy for its officers.“We have carefully reviewed all the public feedback and we understand the distress caused to communities throughout the state,” acting Commissioner Amanda Lefton said in a prepared release last month. “We know that we can do better moving forward.” Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Animals
Conservation
Government

Seven Books About How the Earth Is Changing Right Now

These visceral reported accounts will help readers better understand the new ecological status quo.

On a shelf next to my desk, I keep the books that shaped how I think about our planet—and how I cover it as a journalist focused on nature and the climate. When I sit down to write about the natural world, titles such as The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben; A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold; and The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretel Ehrlich, accompany me. In the decades since they were published, I’ve returned to these touchstones again and again. Each one felt pivotal to my comprehension of the way humans affect our environment.But lately, as I read news about deadly heat waves and disappearing glaciers, those titles are beginning to seem almost naive. They’re full of far-off warnings of what could come if we don’t curb emissions or cut back our rampaging use of resources. There is no if anymore. Our planet is record-breakingly hot because of a global failure to heed those admonitions. Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day was organized, long-term data about warming oceans and aridifying forests are paired, more and more, with impossible-to-ignore proof of civilization’s cascading effects: raging storms, endangered species, fire seasons that stretch all year long. We’re past prediction and into perception. Today, a new genre of writing—one that records the ongoing crisis—feels more useful than my old standbys. Below are seven visceral reported accounts of what’s happening in the places where the Earth is changing most rapidly; each will help readers better understand the new status quo.Silent Spring, by Rachel CarsonThis 63-year-old classic might seem to belong on the shelf with the other old-school books, but it’s worth returning to because Carson built the mold for reporting on an ongoing disaster. She made chemical pesticides, an otherwise dry subject, terrifying and compelling by outlining the ways that DDT, a highly toxic insecticide, was harming the natural world. By referencing the texture of paper-thin eggshells and the eerie silence of bird-free spring mornings, she pulled on all our senses in order to precisely pin down the damage. Then she untangled the chemistry of these dangerous compounds, connected their varied effects, and called out chemical companies and the U.S. military for their complicity in spreading them, giving readers context for what they saw happening in daily life. Carson’s report was revelatory in its time: It was used in congressional testimony that led to a ban on DDT, and it was cited during the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Today, it’s still remarkable for its clarity and punch, and reads like a blueprint for making sense of a rapidly changing ecosystem.Fire Weather, by John VaillantVaillant’s book covers a natural disaster that, he acknowledges, lacks subtlety: The 2016 Fort McMurray Fire, the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, scorched a community that was purpose-built to extract bitumen-rich oil sands. Fire Weather is a horror story in three dimensions. As Vaillant describes, instant by instant, the fire’s rampage—whole neighborhoods cut off by flames; houses vaporized in six minutes flat, everything burned but the cast-iron bathtubs—he also connects the resource extraction happening in places like Fort McMurray to the effects of climate change that are setting the stage for megafires, such as warming and aridification. As Vaillant explains, human choices continue to fuel burns on a macro level as well as on a micro level; part of the reason the Fort McMurray Fire was so destructive was that officials couldn’t believe it was going to be as bad as the forecasts suggested. They held off on evacuating for far too long. Vaillant identifies the problem: People struggle to imagine disasters out of scale with what they have seen in the past. To prepare for what’s coming, he warns, we’re all going to have to change our mindset.[Read: Climate models can’t explain what’s happening to Earth]Five Days at Memorial, by Sheri FinkWhen Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, in 2005, the city was first slammed by brutal winds, then inundated by floodwaters as its levees failed. In the chaos, residents were forced to choose between terrible options. At Memorial Medical Center, in the city’s Uptown neighborhood, doctors and nurses had to decide how to care for and evacuate very sick patients in a facility that was swiftly deteriorating: Generators were swamped by the storm surge; oxygen ran low; the heat made everything worse; the emergency-management plans that the hospital administration had recently double-checked quickly failed. Fink’s meticulous research—she interviewed more than 500 people—shows, in painstaking detail, how the hospital’s disaster protocol crumbled as the water rose, and then how communication buckled under a creeping sense of panic. In that maelstrom, several patients were given doses of sedatives that ultimately killed them, and Fink’s account revolves around those decisions and the criminal allegations that arose after the crisis. Its real subject, however, is how people respond when they’re faced with life-and-death choices in desperate situations—something even more relevant two decades later.Crossings, by Ben GoldfarbHumans alter the environment in innumerable ways. One of the most significant modifications, Goldfarb argues, is also one of the most ubiquitous: roads. The second an ecosystem is carved up for cars, it’s changed drastically. In a grim, yet zippy, drive down some of the planet’s most ecologically harmful roadways, Goldfarb shows how highways and thoroughfares have splintered habitats, wiped out generations of migrating creatures, and fractured species’ expected spectrum of sound and light. He focuses on animals—both charismatic megafauna, such as the violent, inbred mountain lions who are trapped between Los Angeles freeways, and bugs, which make up a crucial part of the food web and have been slaughtered en masse by high-speed cars. But he also has an ear for human details, profiling, for instance, a mule-deer biologist who is deeply allergic to mule deer. This lively, wide-ranging book about roadkill also has a solemn message: If cities and countries continue to depend on car travel, constructing roads that sever terrain, they’ll end up building a lonelier, less humane society for all of us.Read: The era of climate change has created a new emotionPaying the Land, by Joe SaccoWhereas Fire Weather demonstrates the kind of fast, all-consuming destruction that fossil-fuel extraction can lead to, Paying the Land demonstrates the quiet social fracturing that can result over the long term. Sacco visits the communities of the Dene, one of the First Nations of Canada’s Northwest Territories. In a series of illustrated profiles, his subjects discuss the long history of fuel mining and environmental degradation in the area—starting with the moment the British monarchy handed the territories over to the fur-trapping industry in the 17th century and continuing to modern-day fracking. But the interviewees’ stories aren’t complete without telling a parallel story; they speak of forced removal, culture-eradicating residential schools, and shattered traditional hunting and fishing practices, which have wounded multiple generations. Sacco also investigates how being economically dependent on gas companies and the government has created complicated rifts: Families fell apart over whether to support fracking, while alcohol and drug abuse became rampant. It’s an ongoing story of cultural and landscape loss all too common in the communities closest to the petroleum industry.The Great Derangement, by Amitav GhoshBroadly, Ghosh argues, the problems of climate change are created in the developed world yet are felt most acutely outside it. Ghosh, who has seen the ravaging effects of tornadoes and monsoons on his native Kolkata, builds his series of interlinked essays about the history and politics of global warming around a double-edged storytelling problem that he says prevents the people in rich countries from grasping the enormity of climate change. First, because our common narrative framework depends on the past, many people still consider warming through a speculative lens, failing to recognize the severity, and urgency, of superstorms and sea-level rise. And second, that framework also neglects to assess the past, because it leaves out how centuries of extraction and domination by wealthy, powerful countries have made it hard for formerly colonized nations to be resilient in the face of rising temperatures. That’s the “derangement” of his title: the inability of our stories to change as quickly as our world is.Read: The climate action that the world needsCategory Five, by Porter FoxThe ocean, Earth’s biggest absorber of carbon and heat, is the largest single player in the climate crisis. As the seas warm and rise, they are now altering the paths that storms follow, the direction of once-reliable trade winds, and the intensity of weather; as a result, hurricane season is expanding, and new research shows that more homes are at risk of flooding than ever before. This book chronicles Fox’s quest to understand modern superstorms, which he pursues mostly on the water: As the son of a boat builder who grew up on the coast of Maine, Fox knows that no one understands the variability of the ocean more concretely than sailors. On a series of sailing trips, he learns that much of what is known about oceanography comes from small-scale, underfunded institutions and rogue observers. For instance, the federal research budget for oceans, the coasts, and the Great Lakes in 2024 was just $251.5 million, a fraction of what the government spends on things such as space exploration—and that number was determined before DOGE mandated major cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Humanity knows that bigger, more catastrophic storms are coming, but as Fox persuasively shows, the United States’ underinvestment undermines the entire world’s ability to predict them.

Animals
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