Subject: Re: Squirrel lives matter!
Actually, they can test for rabies while the animal is alive. I had to look it up. It's a rabies titre test. Not a doctor, so don't know the details. It may also assume that the animal has a history of vaccination (e.g. pets), which a wild animal does not.

However, I suspect it is an antibodies test. If the animal was recently infected, it may not have the antibodies yet. If House MD is right, detecting illnesses residing in the brain is tricky, and rabies is primarily in the brain. So it's not 100%. Analyzing the brain is much more certain, which requires killing the animal.

I'm so-not-paying-attention to this election, that I didn't know about the squirrelicide.