My husband and I were in Petsmart a few weeks ago and he saw a rodent run behind a shelf. I looked under the shelf and saw a huge sticky trap with about seven dead and one live mice on it. I was so sad for the live one and wanted to save it. I talked to the manager and he was extremely rude to me. This made me call the Petsmart hotline. I issued a complaint and was told they would reply to my complaint and five days later they hadn't so I called back. I did get a reply, via email, to this complaint that basically said my concerns would be looked into. I was not satisfied and wrote back that I was upset at the way the manager treated me and asked what their policy on pest control was and that I felt those traps were inhumane and a company like Petsmart that touts itself on the humane treatment of animals should have a more humane form of pest control. They told me the sticky traps were the best choice for the safety of their associates for fecal matter and hair control. I wrote PETA on Sunday and told them my story. PETA called me back, on Sunday, and got my information and said they were calling Petsmart. I feel so good about it all.

pakd4fun,

This made my blood boil, but you know, that's not the worst of it. In cooking school we were taught that it's a common practice to place the sticky traps in a freezer, living mice or dead, once they are full. The freezing action allows the rodents(now all dead) to be prized off neatly, so that the sticky trap can be reused.

I am going to write to Petsmart to inform them that, not only will I never patronize their animal-unfriendly stores again, I shall get every one of the dozens of pet owners I know to boycott them also. I wonder if it would be illegal to stand out in the parking lot and hand out flyers about their pest control practices?

pakd4fun,

Still fuming. Here's the text of the letter I'm about to send to PetSmart Corporate:


PetSmart, Inc.
Store Support Group
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85027

To Whom It May Concern:

It has recently come to my attention that certain of your nationwide stores use sticky traps to catch rodents, both rats and fieldmice. This method adheres the animal to a glue laced block, and precipitates death through starvation, dehydration, gangrenous septicemia; should the animal attempt to gnaw itself free, or temperature induced organ failure. It is without dispute inhumane. Given that you are a company which publicly appears to do a great deal of good for animals, through charities and adoption rallies, etc., I consider the employment of this method of pest control to be an abomination of what you purport to stand for. These are absolutely not the methods of an animal-friendly company. I have no choice but to cease to even consider doing business with your company should this practice continue. I shall likewise discourage every other pet owner I know to do the same. I am confident they will feel just as disenchanted as I am. Please rectify this if you can; there are many cost-effective and humane methods of pest control. Your resorting to cruelty is nothing short of disgusting.


Sincerely

pakd4fun,

Here's the actual text of the letter I have sent; for some reason, the mod won't let me edit it for Vegan reasons?!:


PetSmart, Inc.
Store Support Group
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85027

To Whom It May Concern:

It has recently come to my attention that certain of your nationwide stores use sticky traps to catch rodents, both rats and fieldmice. This method involves a glue laced block of paperboard or plastic to which the unsuspecting animal stepping upon it is adhered, precipitating death through starvation, dehydration, gangrenous septicemia; should the animal attempt to gnaw itself free, or temperature induced organ failure. It is without dispute inhumane. Given that you are a company that publicly appears to do a great deal of good for animals, through charities and adoption rallies, etc., I consider the employment of this method of pest control to be an abomination against what you purport to stand for. These are absolutely not the methods of an animal-friendly company. I have no choice but to cease to even consider doing business with your company should this practice continue, and I shall likewise encourage every other pet owner I know to do the same. I am confident they will feel just as disenchanted as I am. Please rectify this if you can; there are many cost-effective, humane methods of pest control. Your resorting to cruelty is nothing short of disgusting.

Wow Tamukha, great letter! Thanks for your support.

pakd4fun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow Tamukha, great letter! Thanks for your
> support.
Forget the letter, which will only get misdirected,
and get on the phone to the highest official you can reach.
I don't have a Rodent problem, but there is a Squirrel who hangs
out at my place. He eats under my carport and leaves me little
'messes' to clean up. I caught him the other day in my Grapefruit
Tree pulling the little fruits off the tree....boy did I get the
urge to 'Kill'....WY

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ......We must live in harmony with
> these creatures, for remember, the Creator brought
> them forth first, so therefore we are guests on
> their Earth and must conform.
Okay...thanks, that helps....WY

oh man, i read HUMAN pest control... do they make sticky traps for that i wonder? maybe not humaine (humane?) but with some people totally appropriate! like the ones who think it's ok to do that to mice!

Do you think having a mouser would be a humane form of rodent control? I've seen cats playing with their food before, and this must not feel that great for the mouse.

Well, Bryan, cats I think are the only animal besides us capable of malice. I remember watching one slowly dismember a living lizard when I was ten and on vacay in Florida. It didn't eat it, which was horrifying to see, because it made me realize there is something besides us that engages in cruelty for cruelty's sake. I like cats, by the way. You cannot fault them for their nature.

Barn owls, now those are efficient and quick despatchers of rodents. But I somehow cannot picture the average pet store in the 'burbs keeping one on staff.

Maybe the Petsmart store should have a cat on staff.

i thought about a cat too. I don't think cats are always more humane, but sometimes abd natural. I think snap traps are more humane.

snap traps are the only humaine option, though mouse proofing a space to begin with is even better! there must be a way to introduce a cat odour (that humans can't smell) to scare them off. i think i've read about a noise maker that they don't like too, one that we can't hear.

catch and release

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I asked the manager at Petsmart about catch and release and he said they tried it and it didn't work. Who knows if it is the truth or not. He did not behave like a man of high degree. I prefer saying "shoo shoo, little mouse." Of course I have 17 cats, so unfortunately it isn't a friendly place for mice visiting. We did catch and release one one time. It was actually on my stove and my little girl was eating lunch and saw it. I did want to get him into the woods.

heres the thing ... i have had to deal with mice / rats for years owning farms they need to either store the food in impervious containers (i stored my feed bags in old chest freezers i got fro free from the dump or in sealed rooms.

i never had any problems with mice and rats as you take away the food source .. you take away the problem

in a pet store probably neither option is viable to them cuz it would be too responsible, and too costly .. catch and release probably doesnt work for them because they have to pay someone to deal with the trouble of taking them out to release

so yea if it didnt work for them they probably didnt try very hard

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

here's my gran's nifty little catch and release trap, it works too!

take a tea cup and a saucer and a thimble full of flour, balance the tea cup upside down on the thimble on the saucer with most of the thimble inside the cup. the wee mousey goes under the cup to get a the flour, pulls it out from under the rim of the cup and the cup falls down trapping the mouse under the cup! of course if it is a big enough mouse it might be able to escape from under that cup but if that's the case a bucket instead of a cup and a cup instead of a thimble aught to do it. the worst the mouse will get is scared, thirsty and perhaps a pinched tail. better than dead though, right?

coco,

That is a nifty way to handle it. Here's a method Shazzie devised and posted in her now-unavailable blog:

You take an old paper towel tube and set it on the kitchen counter perpendicular to the edge, with half of it extending beyond the edge. You put a small amount of cheese or bread near the outer end(the one jutting out into space). You place a clean plastic waste basket beneath the overhanging half of the tube, and fill most of the basket with a large quantity of crumpled up tissues, paper toweling or craft paper. Then, you wait. The idea is that the little mouse comes along the counter, sniffs at the tube and detects the food at the other end, and rushes into the tube after it. Once it gets to the overhanging end, its body weight cause the tube to fall vertically into the waste basket; the wadded up paper cushions the mouse's fall so it doesn't get hurt. You then take the waste basket a good ways from your house, and gently shake the mouse out, replacing the paper after the mouse scampers off. Reuse as necessary. Apparently, Shazzie tried this many times and it never failed.

Im doing a presentation on humane Animal treatment??
It is going to be for younger kids aged 10 and under.
I dont wanna do a boring speech and show a boring video.
I wanna do something fun, but educational at the same time. It will be at different schools and different classes.
Soooooo........
any fun ideas?


san antonio pest control

i think the paper towel role thing makes for an interesting presentation feature.

we've got this funky trap from my mom right now, it's got a little seesaw mechanism inside so once the critter is in there it just can't get out. every time it steps on the lever to exit it tilts up and blocks the door.
unfortunately the one mouse we caught like this and set free (in a field of wheat over 2 miles away, don't worry!!) had aborted in the trap due to panic. so we didn't kill the mouse we caught, just all her unborn babies. sigh.

Everyone,

I heard back from PetSmart. It wasn't a form letter; someone had taken the time to address each point in my letter. But overall, the tone was weary/defiant, explaining that they have considered other more humane methods,and have used them unsuccessfully, and that they must consider public health, and the health of their employees. "While we hate to see any living creature suffer, tame or wild, we will continue to employ our current rodent control practice until a better option is found." So, your basic humans-and-the-meanest-limits-of-their-efforts-matter-most posture. Hey, ten points for their honesty. I'm still not shopping there, and there is no evidence in the letter that they expect me to. Five extra points for not their groveling.

gah, a simple snap trap is at least a quick death. that suffocating in glue or dehydrating to death thing is, ugh, unbearable to even think about!

once, when they first came out and were marketed as "humaine", my roomie and i used a glue trap. when the sticky stuff didn't dissolve in water as claimed we spent literally hours gently peeling the wee mousie out of there and left him in a corner by his hole in the wall with a crust of bread and some cheese and a little thingy of water and left the house for a while so he could recover. he was shaking and quaking in terror the entire time, it sucked. he and all the snacks were gone when we got back though. whew.