Nibi the rescue beaver may be able to stay with her rescuers after an emergency injunction was filed on her behalf in Massachusetts on Tuesday.
Nibi was supposed to be taken by MassWildlife officials at 9:30 on Tuesday morning. A temporary restraining order issued by a judge prevented that from happening, for now.
The beaver was found by Jane Newhouse along the side of a highway in 2022 as an orphaned baby weighing only one pound. Nibi has lived with Newhouse Wildlife Rescue and has been a social media celebrity ever since.
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"So many people have fallen in love with Nibi," Jane Newhouse told WBZ-TV.
The 2-year-old Nibi has never known an undomesticated life, which contributed to the more than 20,000 signatures on a petition submitted on her behalf. Newhouse argued that the beaver could not survive a harsh Massachusetts winter on her own.
"Nibi is going to have to figure [winter] out for the very first time," Newhouse told WBZ-TV. "And with it being October, if Nibi doesn't get it right the first time, I don't think she's going to make it."
Teper Legal, which specializes in animal law, wrote the emergency injunction that was granted by Associate Superior Court Justice Cathleen Campbell.
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"This Order prohibits the removal of Nibi the Beaver from Newhouse Wildlife Rescue in Chelmsford, Massachusetts and/or her release back into the wild. This Order shall remain in full force and effect pending a full hearing and a further Order of this Court," Campbell wrote.
Newhouse Wildlife Rescue tried to socialize young Nibi around other beavers at around five months old, but unfortunately, it was too late. Nibi wanted nothing to do with any rescue beavers brought in to socialize with her.
Baby beavers are highly social and family-oriented by nature, and Newhouse argued that it would have been cruel to leave Nibi with limited human contact in a cage as a baby.
"In wildlife rehabilitation, when you're raising a baby mammal of any kind, you want them to be with others of their own kind because otherwise they're getting used to just people, and that's not good for them," Newhouse said.
MassWildlife argued that the Newhouse team did not do its job, saying that "the role of licensed wildlife rehabilitators is to care for sick and injured wildlife so that animals can be released back into the wild as soon as possible. Newhouse Wildlife Rescue was informed in June that the beaver is healthy and must be returned to the wild, in accordance with their permit and state regulations."
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey sounded off on Tuesday to the media on "protecting wildlife."
"I know from my own team about Nibi the beaver, and I can tell you this: We're going to do everything we can to protect Nibi, and I appreciate those who care for wildlife – especially wildlife when they've been injured and rescued – and I appreciate the folks at MassWildlife, too, whose job is to make sure we're looking after and protecting wildlife," said Healey.
"I shouldn't be working against the state to try and save an animal, especially a keystone species. We should all be working together. We should be on the same team," Newhouse told WBZ.
Healey, Newhouse Wildlife Rescue and MassWildlife did not return Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
