Glue traps are nasty. Animals caught in them die slow horrible deaths. Some people don't mind that for the mice and rats they intend to trap, but are upset when some other creature falls victim.
At a wildlife rescue center, someone recently brought in a glue trap with a mockingbird hopelessly plastered to it. The bird had been bounding along on mockingbird business when it hopped onto the trap and got its feet stuck. It struggled to get free, striking down with its wings, getting its wings trapped, hitting the trap with its bill, getting its bill stuck, and so forth until it couldn't move at all. It was immobile, terrified.
The person who set the trap found it while the bird was still alive, and rushed it to the rescue centre, swearing they'd never put a glue trap out again.
What you do in such a case may or may not start with cutting away with the base of the trap. You may sprinkle open areas of glue with sand or some kind of powder, so if you free part of the bird it won't instantly get stuck again, and so your hand or glove won't get stuck. Then you apply an oil like canola oil, to dilute and loosen the intensely sticky “glue.” (Some people use powder for this step too.)
Now the bird isn't gluey, but it's seriously oily. Still terrified but maybe also starting to feel peeved. It wants to leave.
Then you have to wash the oil off the angry bird. (Warm water with 1-2% dishwashing liquid.)
Then you have to rinse the soapy water off the furious bird.
Then you have to dry the enraged bird, probably with a heat lamp.
The process is so traumatic that you don't do it all at once, since the bird probably wouldn't survive the shock and horror. It may also have torn feathers out when struggling in the glue.
After the mockingbird had been through all this, was unglued, clean and dry, it had a day or two in a warm dim quiet place (with food and water) so its condition could stabilize, and was transferred to another wildlife rescue center with better facilities for small perching birds.
When the bird had recovered from its ordeal and had preened its plumage back into passable condition, it was set free.
I looked on YouTube for videos showing animals being freed from glue traps and cleaned. There weren't many, and the best one was too long to put here. (It's an eastern phoebe. Rather than saying the classic “phoe-be!” or even giving an alarm call, it's clacking its bill in a threatening way. 'I'm clean enough! Stand back! Okay, now I'm mad! Watch out!')
The video search was depressing. It showed that many people think animals getting caught in glue traps is hilarious, and some people think that other people getting stuck in glue traps is incredibly sexy.
On the other hand, I did find these excellent video clips suggesting that being stuck in glue is funny when it happens to a perpetually unsuccessful yet irrepressible coyote. Who was the one who put the glue there in the first place. (Think about that, setters of glue traps.)
"Some people don't mind that for the mice and rats they intend to trap, but are upset when some other creature falls victim."
I hate hypocrisy like this, cruelty IS cruelty after all.
Posted by: Chuck | November 16, 2010 at 03:26 AM
"Some people don't mind that for the mice and rats they intend to trap, but are upset when some other creature falls victim."
I hate this sort of hypocrisy, I really do. Cruelty is cruelty.
Posted by: Chuck | November 16, 2010 at 03:26 AM
You're right -- a mouse suffers from such a death just as much as a mockingbird.
Often people just don't think about what it means to put out a glue trap, or what it means to be caught in one.
Posted by: Susan McCarthy | November 16, 2010 at 09:08 AM