Years ago, it was pretty hard to get people to empathize even a little bit with scaly, cold-blooded critters; now, thanks a lot to good PR from television, it is easier to get the message of reptile conservation and tolerance across. We have a lot to be thankful to reptiles for, not the least of which is their control of rodents.
With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.
I'm not looking to freak people out - eating rodents or bugs. I don't do that anymore.
Rodents can come across as being quite vacant in the personality stakes.
I do not knowingly kill any living thing - including insects or rodents - and I thank my food for sustaining me.
A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.