I’ve a mouse in my condo, and he is a intelligent one. Intelligent sufficient, actually, that he is managed to keep away from the very tempting baited snap traps I’ve positioned across the areas of the kitchen the place I’ve seen him seem.
Since these snap traps have not been working, I not too long ago swapped them out for glue boards. In my expertise, these do a greater job of catching mice and blocking potential factors of entry.
In the meanwhile, the strategy of pest management I exploit to maintain uninvited, doubtlessly diseased rodents out of my house is a private, non-public selection I’ve the liberty to make. A brand new invoice from Rep. Ted Lieu (D–Calif.) would make me a federal prison.
Earlier this week, Lieu unveiled the “Glue Trap Prohibition Act of 2024,” which might amend federal pesticide rules to ban the sale and use of glue traps.
The penalties for violating the precise subchapter that Lieu is inserting his glue entice ban into embody fines of as much as $5,000 per offense for industrial violators and $1,000 fines for people. That subchapter additionally permits prison penalties—together with as much as a 12 months’s imprisonment for industrial violators and 30 days imprisonment for personal individuals who violate the legislation.
Ought to Lieu’s invoice develop into legislation, the three glue boards I’ve in my kitchen would open me as much as $3,000 in fines and perhaps a month in federal lockup.
The congressman justifies his glue entice ban on humanitarian and well being grounds.
“Glue traps are ruthless, inhumane, and can be dangerous to the health of humans and their pets,” mentioned Lieu in an announcement. “There are numerous other ways to trap small animals that don’t prolong their suffering.”
His press launch concerning the invoice mentions that the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) does not advocate using glue traps as a result of the trapped reside animals might extra simply unfold illness. The CDC additionally recommends towards using reside traps that do not hurt the animal for a similar motive. Lieu’s invoice does not ban the latter.
Lieu’s press launch additionally claims that animals that do not escape glue traps die of “blood loss, suffocation, or dehydration.” However that is provided that you allow them to sit there, which, I concede, is considerably merciless. It is also type of gross, as the entire level of the entice is to kill the rodent and get it out of your home. (The simplest approach to do that is to slide a plastic bag across the animal and glue entice and both stomp on the bag or hit it with a hammer, dumbbell, or different heavy object.)
Whereas it may be trite or archaic to boost this level, one does marvel the place precisely Lieu thinks Congress will get the authority to control using glue traps in non-public properties. Not even a New Deal Supreme Courtroom justice might actually argue that putting a sticky piece of paper in your ground impacts interstate commerce.
Clearly, some persons are going to be extra involved than myself with the welfare of vermin. Individuals even have pets or babies who would possibly get caught in a glue entice. In these circumstances, maybe another sort of entice is extra acceptable. It looks as if that is one thing that people can determine for themselves.
As long as individuals have the choice of humanely dispatching mice with poison, electrocution, or neck-snapping metallic bars, I might additionally wish to have the appropriate to make use of traps that work with out the chance of going to federal jail.