Releasing rats in village an offense

People should take care of and love small animals. But that doesn't mean they can release rats and other pests in villages and claim that they are doing a service to animals, says an article in Southern Metropolis Daily. Excerpts:

Recently, five people drove a minibus to a village in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and set free thousands of rats there, scaring villagers. Some villagers caught the five people who had released the pests and handed them to the local police saying that by releasing so many rats they had compromised villagers' health. The five "captors" defended themselves saying that releasing the rats in the "wild" serves a good purpose.

The sight of so many rats in one place is like a scene from a horror movie. It is indeed terrible to see a colony of rats, the source of plague that once killed many people across the world, being released in a village. It is like a biological warfare against villagers, for it could trigger a health crisis. These rats, if not culled in time, can also damage standing crops and even the ecosystem.