Tree Rats and the RSPCA

The Daily Mail reports that a man has just been fined £1500 for drowning a squirrel. HERE.
The ludicrous thing is that a fine of this magnitude is rarely handed out by magistrates courts for what most of us would consider serious crimes, clearly hurting a squirrel is far more serious than hurting one of your fellow beings. 
The prosecution was brought by the RSPCA who warned that "that many common methods of killing grey squirrels and other pests could now fall foul of the law, and said the only humane way to dispatch them would be to take them to a vet for a lethal injection - at a cost of up to £70."

Clearly, the RSPCA has now become an Animal Right Organisation, rather than  an animal protection organisation, and it is apparently is more interested in publicity than genuinely protecting animals. Grey squirrels are a pest, but it seems that we are not now permitted to kill pests unless it is done in such a manner that the animal might suffer in the course of its death.

What about rats? I've used a standard bait feeder with warfarin laced corn on and off for a number of years now; does this cause suffering to rats and are the RSPCA going to start prosecuting people who do this?

 

I wonder if this is what the people who put money in their collecting boxes really expect? Certainly they won't be getting a penny more out of me.