Only in ultra-progressive New York could rats have advocates for their lives.

The animals that at one time killed more than a third of Europe during the plagues still have humans standing up for their survival.

PETA last week came out blaming the city’s rampant rat explosion on “disgusting human behavior” — insisting thinning the herd shouldn’t include rodents’ “gruesome, painful” deaths.

“The rats you see on the streets are still sensitive, intelligent animals and they deserve better than to be killed in gruesome, painful ways,” the group’s communications director Ashley Byrne said on Thursday.

“As long as the garbage is there and unchecked the rats will be there,” Byrne said, noting that cutting off the rats’ food source is most critical. “We have a disgusting human behavior problem, not a rat problem.”

She believes “it’s much easier for the city to demonize rats in this cartoonish manner than it is to tell New Yorkers to get their act together and stop treating the city like a garbage dump.”

I know I am not the only one who sees rats almost daily while commuting to work. I have no compassion for their plight and would rather not have to deal with this added stress.