מקבץ פוסטים שפורסמו במקור ב-Animal Rights in Israel (דף פייסבוק, כיום For Anonymous Animals, בבעלות עמותת אנונימוס).
9.9.2013
Glue traps in Home Center
Home Center is the largest Israeli chain of stores for home decor, operating 46 local stores and 12 abroad. The chain sells glue traps, designed to capture rodents, which are usually left to die slowly of thirst and hunger. Birds and kittens are common victims of these traps as well.
Previous protest have been suspended after on July 2011 management guaranteed that glue traps were removed from the chains' stores. Yet, recently glue traps were noticed on sale once again. This time, heavy protest on the chain's Facebook page yields an elusive declaration: "The chain's management addressed the authorized officials in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Chief Veterinarian, in order to get their position on this matter. According to their professional opinion, the chain's management will decide on the next steps."
In other words, at the moment Home Center will keep on selling products that doom rodents, birds and kittens to slow death.
11.10.2013
Glue traps: why we should boycott whoever sells them
This picture was published yesterday on the Israeli Facebook page against stores that sell glue traps. The largest Israeli chain of stores for home decor, Home Center, is one of these companies. It sells glue traps despite a 2011 guarantee not to do so.
The kitten in the picture is a victim of such reckless sales policy. The kitten was caught in a trap set for mice in the yard of a family house in Ramat HaSharon. She managed to free herself from the trap, but her hind legs remained glued and she had to drag herself on the ground. Reaching the street, her mother stood beside her calling, and luckily she was heard, and the kitten was taken to a veterinarian. Her condition is still alarming due to all the glue fumes she inhaled.
We hope that the cruelty of glue traps is all too obvious when it comes to kittens. Nevertheless, gluing an animal until death is no less cruel when mice or rats are the victims. Surely, people often perceive the proximity of rodents as a serious threat, yet many such conflicts could be prevented in the first place, and in other cases capture and release is a viable option.
Meanwhile, Home Center ignores the appeals and even blocks protesters on the chain's Facebook page. Nevertheless, protest works. Yesterday Max Stock announced that all glue traps have been removed from the chains' 15 stores, and no such traps will be ordered in the future.
Source (in Hebrew)
18.12.2013
A bill against glue traps
11 MKs (members of the Israeli Parliament) of several political parties introduced a bill (16 December) that would ban most of the current use of glue traps in Israel. The bill prohibits capturing animals (i.e., vertebrates) with glue, as well as selling glue traps, with some exceptions. Glue traps are currently sold freely in Israel, and there is an ongoing campaign to outlaw them.
Below is a translation of the explanatory section of the bill (Hebrew does not refer to animals as "it" but rather as "he" or "she", and therefore we followed the Hebrew conventions).
"This bill is intended to put into law an explicit ban on capturing animals with glue traps and on marketing such traps to the general public.
"Glue traps are hard surfaces covered with non-drying glue. An animal that steps on the trap is caught by limbs and fur, and cannot get released. They are used to capture rodents, and are considered as a cruel and unnecessary means.
"An animal caught in a glue trap endures severe distress. He suffers of panic and struggles fiercely to get released of the glue. As a result, his hair is torn off, his skin is exposed and his bones are broken. Sometimes he bites his own limbs in an attempt to get released. If the animal is not killed earlier, the suffering may last for over 24 hours, until he dies of cold, hunger, thirst, or suffocation after his head fell on the glue and his mouth and nostrils got blocked. Even if the animal is killed, it usually occurs after long hours of acute suffering, and by unacceptable methods.
"There are efficient, cheap alternatives to glue traps. First and foremost, rodent population control should be achieved by blocking passages and removing objects that attract them (such as food in unsealed containers, or places appropriate for nesting). A variety of efficient and less cruel, cheap methods for capturing or killing rodents are also available, and these are equivalent to glue traps or even more efficient.
"The bill enables the Minister of Environmental Protection to permit licensed exterminators to use glue traps under exceptional circumstance. In order to reduce the suffering of captured animals, it is advised that the permit will be issued only for use in well-defined circumstances in which it would be allowed to use glue traps, and it will require to check the traps frequently and kill the trapped animals by humane methods. In addition, the permit will determine the necessary training the exterminator must go through for using glue traps. Such training may include learning the only circumstances in which it is allowed to used the traps, humane killing methods, and releasing techniques for an animal that has been captured in the trap despite no intention to exterminate him."
