I swear, I really didn’t want to put any energy in to the Gareth Morgan story—didn’t want to give the thing any more oxygen. As a former co-worker used to say, “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

But, as if often the case with such PR stunts, the media is having a field day with Morgan’s just-launched campaign to rid New Zealand of cats. All of them. “The fact is,” he explains on his Cats to Go website, “that cats have to go if we really care about our environment.” For Morgan, “a New Zealand businessman, economist, investment manager, motor cycle adventurer, public commentator and philanthropist,” according to Wikipedia, “that little ball of fluff you own is a natural born killer.”

Which, I suppose, would have been easy enough to ignore. Not so easily ignored, however, if the way Morgan and others have co-opted various scientific studies in an effort to justify his proposal. Read more