Major American Retailers Stop Selling Glue Traps for Rodents
Not part of the animal justice narrative: A review of rat-borne diseases, new and old, that can impact humans.
I have written several posts on rodent-borne diseases that are hitting the areas around homeless camps in the Southern California area.
For example, a typhus pandemic hit Pasadena. There was a significant rodent problem at the Los Angeles City Hall.
And while California has its problems, it must be noted Boston reported a case of rat-caused leptospirosis in a human last year.
Disturbingly, despite the increased need for more effective rodenticides, major American retailers have stopped selling glue traps at the behest of animal rights activists.
Target and Dollar Tree have quietly stopped selling glue traps for rodents, which animal-rights activists have long condemned as unnecessarily cruel, The Post has learned.
The two mega-retailers, which together operate more than 17,000 stores across the US, are following other major retailers in dropping the traps. Those include the CVS, Rite Aid and Duane Reade drugstore chains as well as discount retailer Big Lots, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Hundreds of smaller retailers, including independent stores and mid-size chains, as well as shops at more than 100 airports also have dropped glue traps over the years, according to PETA.
Target and Dollar Tree, which also owns Family Dollar, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dollar Tree made the decision to stop selling the traps about a year ago and may still “have a very small residual number of these [traps] in our stores,” the company told PETA in an email, in which it confirmed that it has “no plans to replenish” the products, according to the animal rights group.
This inanity isn’t confined to the United States. Glue traps have recently been banned in England.
They’ve been used against mice and rats since the 1920s, but glue traps are finally set to be banned in England.
As the name suggests, glue traps are covered in extremely strong glue, causing any mice and rats that walk over them to become stuck.
The Humane Society International (HSI) considers the traps inhumane, since rodents can suffer broken bones, torn skin, suffocation, dehydration, and starvation if caught in them.
A government-backed Private Members Bill received unanimous support for banning glue traps during its final reading in the House of Lords this week.
HSI has hailed the ban – which will come into effect in England two years after receiving Royal Assent – as a ‘momentous victory’ for wildlife.
— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) June 11, 2022
As a reminder, here is a list of public health problems created by rodents.
There are disease concerns with both wild (rats, mice) and pet (rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs) rodents and rabbits. They can carry many diseases including hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV), Tularemia and Salmonella.
Wild rodents also may cause considerable property damage by chewing through wiring in homes, car engines, and other places.
I dread the day that I uncover a report about another outbreak or epidemic involving a rat-borne disease. Interestingly, a new coronavirus has been found spreading among rodents in Sweden.
Among Sweden’s red-backed bank voles (Myodes glareolus), researchers have now identified a widespread and common coronavirus they’ve called the Grimsö virus, after the location of its discovery.
We don’t know whether the newly found virus is in any way dangerous to humans; nevertheless, the findings are a good reminder of why we need to monitor wildlife viruses, especially those carried by animals that live in close proximity to us.
“We still do not know what potential threats the Grimsö virus may pose to public health. However, based on our observations and previous coronaviruses identified among bank voles, there is good reason to continue monitoring the coronavirus amongst wild rodents,” says virologist Åke Lundkvist from Uppsala University in Sweden.
I will simply note that there was no mention of rat-borne diseases in the joyful reports about the decision to stop selling glue traps. I guess it isn’t a convenient part of the narrative.
Scolding lectures about keeping the area clean is the response when queries are made about rat control. But what happens when your home abuts a homeless encampment?
Keep a #clean home environment free from rubbish, clutter, remove all old stuff from Yards which would attract them to hide inside! A clean uncluttered space will deter rodents!
— Anna Moore (@annamoor1995) May 28, 2022
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Comments
Everybody knows the glue make them inedible.
Cruel? To Vermin? Does not compute.
The main problem is glue traps is that the rodents can escape before you find them. When dealing with a rodent problem I’d regularly check the glue traps and finish off any trapped critters with a pellet gun, but even then there were still some that had signs of escapees (fur on the glue, etc).
For the record, I used a combination of glue and snap traps, the glue traps were useful for covering a wider gap than the snaps could. Thankfully I succeeded, found and sealed the entryways and exterminated the resident population.
How about we have the animal activists live with the rodents and let us get rid of the pests.
Absolutely everything the government does these days increases the death rate and makes life more and more dangerous. Physical fitness and healthy lifestyles have been declared part of White Supremacy so why does protecting the rat population is no surprise. After all, it will be very difficult to make up for the millions of human babies who won’t be aborted if repealing Roe v. Wade begins stemming the abortion holocaust.
“The Humane Society International (HSI) considers the traps inhumane, since rodents can suffer broken bones, torn skin, suffocation, dehydration, and starvation if caught in them.”
But that’s the point! Functioning as designed.
Is it illegal to use glue traps to catch animal rights idiots?
No, but you’ll have greater success using a tar baby. That way you’ll not only catch the PETA morons, but you’ll snag some “antiracists” as well, especially those who see the racism bogeyman behind every bush.
If the rodents carry vegetable oil or butter substitute they can work free. The oils liquefy the glue. That’s how you can get it off your fingers too.
So when will we hear that the newest coronavirus can’t be called the Grimsö virus, because naming after place of origin is racist?
Amazon is selling these traps.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rat+glue+trap&sprefix=rat+glue+%2Caps%2C79&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_9
Of course they are.
The first thing I thought of when I read this article is that somewhere on the dark side of the earth, a smiling Chinaman is throwing a set of Scrabble dice preparatory to naming his brand new Amazon vendor that will sell glue traps to Americans. They’ll just have to wait five weeks longer for them to come over on the boat.
Hope Mickey doesn’t eat your baby’s throat out before they arrive.
So…merely “cruel” is okay, but “unnecessarily cruel” is verboten?
Who makes up this crap anyhow?
Thank God for cats. Wonder if it’s considered “unnecessarily cruel” when the cat toys with the mouse before it bites the little head and you hear the crunch crunch of the tiny skull getting crushed between the cat’s jaws.
Clearly these people do not believe in Darwin and survival of the fittest.
We already knew these people were rats. Digging a deeper hellhole. May they reap what they sow…yersinia pestis.
There are other problems with glue traps. Bottom line you want a trap that either killzzzz the vermin or one that does not require any contact with the live rodent. Some may believe poison is the answer. But that presents hazards up the food chain. As for using it to rid yourself of vermin indoors (the poison is a blood thinner) I have two words, walls and decomp. So a good trap is best.
Also certain breeds of dog have well deserved reputations as vermin hunters. We had an infestation of roof rats from the long abandoned property next to us getting cleared. I developed a “I see a rat” scream which brought our Black Mouth Yellow Cur dogs running in and ready for the kill. Good Doggy!!
How does the dog (or cat) avoid getting rat-borne diseases while rat hunting?
I think that is better answered by a vet. I will assume that the dog is up to date on its vaccination and that the dog is trained to only kill and forbidden to consume the rat. I doubt too that handlers of ratting dogs would put their animals at risk if the chances of catching disease was high.
A lot of diseases don’t cross species boundaries. But some do, of course, like rabies.
When one of my Great and Mighty Huntresses comes home with a bunny, there’s 100% chance she’s going to have tapeworms a month later. Normally I wouldn’t care, but you can’t dose them when they’re pregnant or nursing, which is a whole four months. And if they bring the bunny back to feed their pups (in the outdoor run where you don’t see it) then it’s Katie Bar The Door, because deworming puppies is even more of a hassle.
“Also certain breeds of dog…”
Also known as…. Rat Terriers 🙂
I am as far as you can possibly be from an animal rights activist but the glue traps are horrific and not very effective and there are many better more humane ways to get rid of vermin. If you are moaning about not
Getting to use them anymore and you have seen them in action…you are dead inside
I have zero problem killing mice and rats but I will not use a glue trap. I’ve got battery operated rat zappers that took care of a bunch of roof rats in my mom’s vacant house and they’ve killed dozens of mice in my rural NM house as well. I keep them baited and charged year round because those asshole rodents will always find a new spot to chew their way in.
Thumbs up for the battery rat traps. Easy to empty, no live vermin, and 4 have cleaned my garage out of rats and mice.
Can’t use snap straps because of cats. Poison is ok but I really get a crazed killer laugh when I empty out the electrical traps. Can’t do that with poison.
The problem with battery rat traps is that when you use them for a while and don’t catch anything, you really have no good way of knowing whether the thing actually works at all, or it’s just a fancy inert pantry.
I change the batteries before “mouse season” and after “mouse season” which is typically in the fall when the weather changes. If you can get them before they drop a litter, you won’t catch as many.
The problem is that they already banned the actual effective traps IN FAVOR OF the idiotic near-useless glue traps.
Glue traps might be inhumane but I would rather use them than say poison, mainly because we have pets. They will find a dead rodent before you do and if that happens it’s going to be an emergency trip to the vet and that’s if you notice in time.
With a choice between only poison or glue, I’d use glue, but when we had a rat problem last year (an old house and useless cats) I went for the Victor snap-traps for rats. They worked wonderfully with chunky peanut butter, had very few misses, and the kills were very clean, most of them no blood at all, such that I could even reuse the traps.
Ah, the enviroweenies in their every-comical attempt at making the world a safer, greener place are trying to ban glue traps for rodents, which will result in a giant uptick in the rodent/human interface numbers as well as a huge jump in industrial rat and mouse poisons and therefore a jump in wild bird poisoning and dead pets.
They must be so proud.
Rodents seek warmth not just food in the winter (in fact, I would venture that warmth is slightly more important than food for a mouse at this time…rat is a different story)
This “clean space” is absolutely false if you have gaps in your home that you don’t know about. To a rodent, underneath your sofa is an equally attractive hiding place as that pile of boxes you didn’t get rid of.
Plenty of trapping alternatives on YT. Bait stations made from PVC and positioned along the foundations of a house are effective; or buckets with just enough water to drown them, with balance traps at the top to drop them in the soup work well.
Around here, I’ve gotten tired of mowing the acreage and have turned all but the lawn around the house to field. I mow the long grass every couple of months and the Cub Cadet is quite effective at eliminating mice, voles and the occasional rat. Some mowing patterns are more effective than others for extermination.
I like snap traps because they anchor the rat or mouse, and you can easily dispose of it. With poison, they go off and die, and you will always wonder if your pets are getting into the poison.
When setting out a snap trap, be sure to put peanut butter under the trigger as well as on top of it. Rats are good at licking it off the top of the trigger, but they have to stick their nose under it to get the peanut butter there.
Also, there are are lots of innovative easy-to-construct pitfall traps on YouTube. These would be good when you have more than a couple of rats to get rid of.
Make sure you tie the trap with a few feet of twine or wire, or else that mouse/rat will drag the trap into your walls and die there.
You have to admit: starving to death is a horrible way to die, even for a rat. Better if they put poison inside the glue trap, so the rat dies quicker.
I’ve seen glue traps at work with mice on them. Mice are vermin that need to be dealt with but I’ll never use glue traps. They do work though. I’ve seen the traps loaded with mice.
I won’t say they should be banned but I’m not ever going to use them. Call me a softy but I don’t think a trap that leads to an animal suffering is a trap I’d want to use. Even for vermin like mice/rats.
Either catch and release or instant kill traps for me.
Or cats. My outside cats, neutered, are murder machines. Not even squirrels come in my yard anymore.
I love animals but rats are the lowest form of life. Pure evil. They serve no useful purpose in life and they eat their own young and each other. I can’t imagine myself ever feeling pity for them. Anything that works to keep the rat population down is fine by me.
Rats are acting out simply because they are misunderstood. Genetically they are just like their brethren across the aisle, the squirrel, minus the bushy tail. A lot of rats actually identify as squirrels, and long for the recognition afforded to squirrels by humans. Perhaps it the void in their socialization – not getting offered peanuts, for instance – that contributes to their bad reputation. Or, maybe it’s the stigma tied to being part of the word Democrat.
Next time you see a rat, toss it a peanut or two, or talk little-creature-baby-talk to it. And consider using Libtard or ShitForBrains instead of the demeaning label Democrat.
Squirrels are just tree rats.
These traps must be outlawed as part of the fight against addiction. How many unsuspecting young rats (reminiscent of Gene Hackman in French Connection 2) become involuntary glue huffers as a result of their forced exposure. Nothing is sadder than to see them scurrying through dumpsters looking for their next glue fix. At best they will live with a monkey on their backs, in and out of rehabilitation clinics. What wasted rat lives! Do you want our proud American rats ending up like Hunter Biden?
I live adjacent to hundreds of acres of woods and a large creek.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who has had animals chew through my cars’ wires. I had to solder them to reconnect them to get them to run.
I’ve had to replace a pricey dashboard harness, a spark plug wire with three whole inches gone from the middle, rewire several internal and external RV lights, and ourtight scrap a propane pool heater and an entire Mercedes. My son put one of those ultrasonic rat repellants under his hood, and two weeks later found more rat damage, including that the rat had eaten the entire positive wire from the ultrasonic dingus to the battery clip..
If it were up to me, all rats would be sentenced Death by Diamondback Snu-Snu.
I built several “pet-proof” PVC bait stations before I realized that the real peril was not from pets eating the bait, but from pets eating the groggy rats that ate the bait. Also, our local owls and hawks. (Vultures are magic — you cannot poison them.)
My wife says that some newer varieties of poison are designed to defeat the “secondary poisoning” problem:
Too many Democrats having close calls – and dangerous to glue sniffers.
This is such idiocy and insanity. The vile Dumb-o-crats destroy everything that the touch. They are totalitarian regressives, not “progressives,” as they call themselves in an attempt to sate their self-congratulatory narcisissm.
As a wildlife rehabber … rodents aren’t the only animals glue traps catch. We see birds and other animals stuck to those things. I dunno what the most effective way to catch rodents is … but whatever it is … it should be humane.
I just hope all the unglued rats show up at the glue banners homes.
By the way, don’t use poison. Not only might it cause your pet to fall ill from eating a dead rat, but the rat might crawl into the wall and decompose, stinking up your house for several weeks. At my beach house a renter at the end of the season complained they found rat droppings. Our property manager called the exterminator who put out poison. It worked and we had to fumigate for a couple weeks. Fortunately there were no more rentals when this occurred.
I like the cheap rat traps. They work and they’re so cheap you just throw them in the trash, rat and all.
OTOH, I installed the noise devices and that seems to have halted any rats coming in during the winter when the house is occupied infrequently.
“inhumane”? If they were large glue traps set out to catch HUMANS, I would agree. But these are pestilence-spreading vermin.
Glue traps are the only type that have worked consistently for me. But you have to tape them down securely to the floor or other surface they are on. Otherwise the critters will just drag them to a spot where they can wedge them in for leverage and escape, leaving you with just a patch of fur.
I guess it is back to using peanut butter on spring loaded traps. Be sure to tie the trap down with string or twine so the trapped mouse can’t run away and die inside your walls.
For the worst vermin of all, the beta democRat male, hookers and substances of abuse are the usual “glue traps” of choice.