I would like to publicly thank Ace Hardware for agreeing to withdraw “Stick-Em” glue traps from their shelves.
Ace Hardware readily acknowledged the inhumanity of these traps – the animals caught in the glue suffer for days before they finally die of starvation, dehydration, self-mutilation, and shock while patches of skin, fur, or feathers are torn from their bodies as they struggle to escape. As with all traps, non-target species – birds, squirrels, pets and even small children – have been accidentally trapped.
Ace Hardware has joined CVS, Rite Aid, Albertsons, and Safeway in banning glue traps. That leaves Lowes, PetSmart and Home Depot as the leaders in selling animal torture devices. Apparently more public feedback is required before these companies will acknowledge the sentience of mammals, and the concerns of compassionate consumers. I urge you to vote against cruelty by patronizing stores that have chosen not to supply these archaic and barbaric devices, and to make your shopping choices known.
Vanessa Schulz
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2008.
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Really these traps arent that inhumane….. All you gotta do is check the traps daily. If there is a mouse in them, pick up the trap and remove it to a safe location, away from kids, dog, and the dry-heaving wife. Next get a screw driver from your tool box, the bigger the better. Next, grab the screwdriver by the blade and WHACK the mouse on the back of the head as hard as you can. You’ll know its dead when blood comes out of its eyes and ears.
See! Problem solved!.. You just compassionately ended its suffereing and kept your home diesase free…
I’m not sure that glue traps are necessarily more inhumane than some alternatives. D-Con contains warfarin, which is a blood thinner. It kills by making the blood so thin it leaks out of the organs and tissue, eventually killing the beastie. I don’t know if there is any research on what that feels like. Probably the best method is the old fashioned baited mouse trap that snaps a metal bar down across the neck. No method appears to present a great way to depart. Catch and release allows the varmint to live another day and have further opportunity to do damage or infect someone, so there are valid arguments against that, too. Securing your property, preventing rodents from entering in the first place is what I have done, so I don’t have to deal with the unpleasant issue.