Anger over Larry Norman's call to eradicate rats.

Owners of pet rats are howling in protest over philanthropist Larry Norman's call to"seriously do something about rats in the wilderness" of New Zealand forests. Norman launched a website alerting people to the damage that rats do to native species.

"These little bastards go and eat anything they can get their filthy little paws on, Tuis, Fantails, you name it, they eat it. They even eat their [native species] bloody food supply, little pigs!" The site had information on how to catch rats and and an appeal to make them extinct."The little shits don't even belong here".

But owners of pet domesticated rats have been very vocal about the matter."You leave my poor rat alone!" said Cynthia Gargoyal of Auckland."My rat is adorable, with his little beady eyes and lovely fur, and oh so cuute with his little booties that I found on eBay." Cynthia went on to describe Larry as a cruel evil man.

Ginette Fredrick a self-described lover of all animals from Southland said"We should put Larry down, that will teach him! He's just stupid, he doesn't know anything!" Many others had similar sentiments calling Norman a bully,  animal hater dumbdumb and"moran".

Meanwhile the SPCA commented that it wasn't in the business of killing animals, even pests."We don't want to mess with nature, and rats are in nature, so no, we don't want to mess with them." said the SPCA spokesman and movie buff."If we find an injured rat we take care of it then let the little tike get back to his business."

Jannette Lochman from The Department of Conservation had this to say"What the bloody hell does Larry thing we've been doing all this time?"