Different situation, though. A wild rat living in your house could cause damage - it would eat and contaminate your food with its cocktail of diseases, although town pigeons actually carry more of these, and we don't go round killing them - we even feed them. But a rat in your house could nibble through your electric cables, bite you or your kids and generally be a right nuisance.

This one in the jungle though, wasn't doing any harm. It was a domesticated one (these don't carry any diseases) and not likely to cause any trouble. It just made those two berks feel like "men" to kill it and eat it. The producers may as well have given them a tame hamster to practice their "hunter-gatherer" skills on.

it's still a dead rat toid.
it may be tasteless to kill one on tv, but we kill animals all the time, because they are in our way and cause us difficulties, pigeons are  municipally killed on a regular basis as are foxes. 
gino and stuart were not made aware,as far as i know that this was a domesticated rat.

My city council lets the local peregrine falcons hunt down pigeons, which at least is natural behaviour. I don't know of any councils that kill them, to be honest. There'd be dead pigeons everywhere, if that was the case. I've heard that in Paris, they keep the pigeon population down by feeding them seed containing the contraceptive pill!
And foxes in cities are pretty much left alone, which is why there are more of them in urban areas now than in the countryside. They don't do any harm, as long as your bin lid's down tight. No worse than cats - which, by the way, they're scared of.

As others have said, Gino and Stuart only had to look at that rat to know it was a "fancy" pet one, not a wild one. Plus, they'd been told all dangerous critters had been removed from the area before their arrival.
I don't see how it was in their way, or causing them a nuisance, either.

well , no it wasn't in their way or causing them a nuisance, my point was we kill them because they do both, kingston borough employed a sharp shooter to  do away with pigeons.
my previous post half way up the last page  asked about janet street porter's actions in battering  to death, with a rock, a few eels, that were then eaten in a stew. there was, if i recall correctly, no outrage expressed at that, so maybe  it's the thought of a domesticated animal and therefore  some thing closer to us, that disturbs us, so in the end it all comes down to what we  feel comfortable with.

You're right about this - which is why they've been exhorted to chomp down on live insects, with no complaints from anyone. Rather, people complain if they DON'T do it. Every bit as cruel, if not more so. At least the rat was dead when they started eating it. We, as mammals, do seem to have a greater affinity with other mammals than with other creatures. If they aren't soft and furry, and can't squeal in agony, we don't care.

As I said earlier on, if I was in a genuine survival situation, I'd eat whatever I had to, to stay alive. But to do it just for telly ratings and to boost a public profile just seems crass and unnecessary to me. They weren't going to starve unless they ate that rat. Neither was Janet S-P with those eels.

so is it the reason they killed the rat rather than the outocme that  they  will have the  force of law brought down on them?

For me, it's the reason they killed it. They had no need to, but from what I've heard they thought it was OK to, and that it would prove what "men" they were. Hardly - they weren't exactly lost in the wild. They were in a manicured bit of "jungle" a short walk away from civilisation. They weren't about to starve.
Just gratuitous and stupid, IMO. But then, I think that applies to the whole show.

I didn't see that one, cos she annoys the bejesus out of me   Its not the 'cruelty' aspect that gets to me... its the hypocrisy of them being prosecuted for killing a rat on a show that routinely kills animals as part of the trials... I dont really see the difference I think the producers should be facing whatever charges are being brought anyway, they put the rat there for effect, and if I saw a rat in camp, I'd probably panic and kill it - wouldn't cross my mind to check if it was a domesticated one put there as a stunt

well, intent is a  fairly strong facet of law but hard to prove on this occasion  i think they didn't go tooled up to  kill ats, no battle plan,they just came across one...

i tend to agree with you saz.

I agree with this - as I've said, I don't think it's any more acceptable that they use killing bugs for laughs, either. I avoid the show for that reason.

if i had a WILD rat in my house i would also do something about it. killing it and it's clan would probably come first yes but that's a short term solution another clan would move in if my house was 'welcoming' to wild rats. they like food, shelter and warmth like the rest of us...so you need to eliminate the food part of that and you will rarely get them. they live off OUR mess.

a wild rat is quite different to a tame rat though. they are full of disease and do alot of damage to the house. so although i like rats doesn;t mean i want wild ones running around...a hazard for my kids and for my pet rats (who could catch the diseases off wild rats or ofc get pregnant by them )

Their toilet habits leave a lot to be desired as well.

you know, we kill animals all the time, because we want to, we want to eat them,dress up in them  and various other benefits to ourselves,now that's selfish  and it's a fact that we don't have to eat animals to survive, we just want to, if  we  put our energies into growing crops to feed us instead of growing crops to feed the animals that we want to eat, then the whole process would be far more efficient and go a very long to solving  the hunger problems and the  climate problems of the whole planet.
so, none of us are innocent .('cept  vegans probably)

mine are litter trained ..well most of them are

Yours are domesticated, I meant wild ones. It's the same with mice disgusting

Yes as some have mentioned wild rats can cause disease, in this instance though they didn't kill it because they were worried about disease, they killed it because they were "hungry". There's a difference between being hungry and starving, they weren't starving.