Wildlife and animal protection groups are asking people to stop using glue traps to catch rodents. According to the Wildlife Rescue Association of B.C. and the B.C. SPCA, the traps can also catch wildlife and even pets inadvertently.
Residents are being urged to stop using glue traps for rodent control by B.C. animal protection groups who say wildlife and pets are being caught in them.
The Vancouver Humane Society has been calling for local retailers to stop selling the traps because of the cruelty to rodents, which suffer slow, painful deaths when they become stuck in the traps. VHS says there are alternatives to the traps, including measures to exclude rodents from the home.
But glue traps are also causing wildlife to suffer, as the Wildlife Rescue Association of B.C. and the B.C. SPCA have confirmed with heartbreaking photographic evidence of wildlife and even pets being inadvertently caught in the sticky traps.
Wildlife Rescue says it has encountered 74 animals caught in glue traps in the last three years, including songbirds, bats, a hummingbird and a squirrel. The B.C. SPCA's Wild Animal Rehabilitation Centre has also treated a number of animals suffering in glue traps, most recently a house sparrow that did not survive. The society also pointed to the case of a kitten caught in a glue trap in Kelowna in 2015, which survived thanks to treatment at the Rose Valley Veterinary Hospital.
“Retailers need to stop selling these cruel traps, which are causing wildlife to suffer, as well as their intended victims,” said VHS spokesperson Peter Fricker.
"Every year Wildlife Rescue is reminded of the deadly consequences these glue traps have on our local wildlife," said Sam Smith, spokesperson for Wildlife Rescue. "As long as glue traps are offered to the public, wildlife will suffer."
“The public assumes that because these products are sold at major retailers, they are humane and they are effective in solving problems, when it is just the opposite. Animals caught on the sticky traps linger in panic, struggling to get free, injuring themselves or dying from shock, exhaustion, dehydration, or suffocation. These traps should never be sold to the public,” said Sara Dubois, B.C. SPCA Chief Scientific Officer.
