In late September, the furry world was rocked by a leak of telegram chat-logs that revealed an organization of those that practiced extreme forms of animal abuse in the real world. On October 25th, 2018, police in Oregon have made the first arrest of a member of this zoosadist ring, Levi “SnakeThing” Simmons. They have been initially charged with sexual assault of an animal, animal abuse in the first degree, and animal neglect in the first degree.

Levi, who went by several pseudonyms in the furry community including 'Nelizar', became infamous soon after this leak. The logs were released to the public by a fellow zoophile who felt their peers had gone too far in their crueler abusive behavior towards animals. While SnakeThing was quickly overshadowed by a more famous individual caught within the ring, furry Youtuber Kero the Wolf, most of the evidence tied to Levi. This was because the leak was centered around his account that the whistle-blower had gained access to and downloaded the data from. It was Levi's own logs that was eventually shared with the internet.

Update 11/1: Furvengers noted on Tuesday 10/30, that Mr. Simmons was released from prison due to apparent statue of limitations on charges and evidence presented at this time. State charges have been revoked.

Kevin Hsu is a sexology researcher based at Northwestern University on the outskirts of Chicago. In 2013 he sought, and received, approval from the Northwestern Institution Review Board (IRB) – an ethics committee that oversees research with human subjects – to study furries.

Hsu's research is intended to follow work published by Dr. Anne Lawrence in 2009, which references furries as a group possibly displaying a hypothetical phenomenon associated with fetishistic behaviour named "Erotic Target Location Error". Hsu's hypothesis is that many furries – possibly most – are zoophiles, where that attraction manifests as the furry identity and in activities such as fursuiting, and that furries can therefore be classified as "autozoophiles".