Animals dying slowly and painfully from hunger, dehydration, asphyxiation and blood loss. Having their eyes and mouths glued shut. Chewing off their very own limbs attempting to get free.
Jakob Shaw, particular initiatives supervisor for Folks for the Moral Remedy of Animals, laid out the grotesque penalties of glue traps Tuesday because the Ojai Metropolis Council thought-about a ban.
Glue traps — boards coated with an adhesive meant to entrap rodents — have ensnared birds, bats, chipmunks, lizards, opossums, mice, rabbits, salamanders, snakes, turtles and even flying squirrels, Shaw mentioned, citing the WILD-ONe database, created by the Wildlife Middle of Virginia.
“The struggling must cease,” mentioned Ojai Mayor Betsy Stix.
On the assembly, the council unanimously handed an ordinance prohibiting the sale and use of glue traps — making it the second metropolis within the nation to ban them, following West Hollywood final yr.
Brian Popovich, administration analyst for town supervisor’s workplace, pointed to Ojai’s “huge historical past of supporting objects that promote animal welfare.” This consists of just lately passing an ordinance declaring that elephants have the correct to liberty.
Along with citing the struggling and inhumane deaths of trapped animals, Popovich mentioned that the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention has warned in opposition to utilizing glue traps.
“DO NOT USE glue traps and stay traps,” the CDC states. “These traps can scare the rodents inflicting them to urinate, which might enhance your probability of getting sick.”
Popovich instructed the council that extra humane alternate options are snap traps, stay traps or electrical traps. Snap and electrical traps, he mentioned, have a better probability of killing rodents immediately, lowering their struggling, whereas stay traps are supposed to seize and launch animals safely.
Glue traps, Shaw mentioned, “are accountable for extra struggling than every other commercially out there wildlife management product.”
“They pose a menace to each wonderful animal who lives in and round Ojai,” he mentioned. “They’re simply these horrible, indiscriminate killing units that completely disable, injure and kill numerous small animals each single yr.”
Shaw mentioned that, based on the WILD-ONe database, 180 species of wildlife had been caught in glue traps and dropped at animal hospitals.
This yr, the Wildlife Middle of Virginia posted on Fb about an Japanese screech owl that flew right into a glue lure. The veterinary crew bathed the owl to take away the glue residue and thoroughly dried its feathers with a hair dryer.
“What’s so horrible about glue traps is that the overwhelming majority of animals who’re caught in these traps are by no means even taken to an animal hospital or a wildlife rehabilitator,” Shaw mentioned. “They’re left to undergo excruciatingly painful deaths.”
The three individuals who made public feedback on the assembly voiced help for the ordinance; nonetheless, one questioned, “as unhealthy as glue traps are, are we simply pushing folks to choices which might be worse?”
The Ojai ban will take impact inside 30 days.
