When my children were young, we lived in Texas and they loved to play outdoors. They were always poking around and exploring everything they could get their hands on out in nature. One afternoon, they made a surprising discovery while playing. They found a little garden snake in distress, firmly glued to a discarded strip of masking tape that had not been properly disposed of. The girls came tearing into the house, asking for help in rescuing him. So, we carefully collected him on the unyielding strip of tape and brought him inside to examine his situation better.
He had clearly been there for a while, and the Texas sun had not been kind to him in his plight. His skin was dull, dry and thin like crepe paper. He had dehydrated until his form looked floppy in his scaly skin. In some areas, you could see where he had tugged so hard in his attempts to free himself that he had ripped small tears in his skin. All his frantic efforts to free himself had only made his situation worse. Every last inch of him was thoroughly stuck, except for the last two inches of his slender little tail. He was very obviously frightened and terribly tired.
We gathered our extrication supplies and went to work, dipping a cotton swab in olive oil and painstakingly working him free. The entire process took over 2 hours, but through it all, this beautiful little creature was so patient and understanding. He was never aggressive, but simply worked cooperatively, wriggling and squirming his body wherever we dissolved the adhesive beneath him. Thankfully, our wee little snake survived all odds and made a full recovery with a successful release!
The entire experience was touching and educational for the whole family as well as the neighbor boy who watched along with my own girls with rapt curiosity. The children were able to see first hand what can happen when sticky products go awry and end up posing a threat to other creatures. The biggest adhesive threats, however, aren't strips of masking tape, but rather the infamous sticky glue traps that are commonplace in many homes, employed as a method of pest control. These products make every rehabber cringe when they see one, because they know all too well the amount of damage they can do.
The problem with these products is that they're indiscriminate traps that are cruelly slow in killing their captives. Many times, the creatures that perish in these traps aren't even the ones the traps were set to catch. Reptiles, bats, birds, squirrels and various other mammals are all commonly caught, and even non-target insects, too, like butterflies. A wildlife rescue organization in Florida even received a baby raccoon stuck in a glue trap! Animals caught in adhesive traps are often flooded with terror and go to extreme lengths to try to escape, even to the point of breaking their own bones and tearing their own skin. These creatures end up dying of hunger, thirst, injury or overwhelming stress. One statistic from the Audubon estimates that as few as 1/4 of the animals brought in for rescue survive glue traps to be returned to the wild. The remaining animals that don't receive help from humans inevitably perish, so the true death toll is undoubtedly much higher.
We, too, have received many unintended victims of glue traps as rescue patients. Our most recent was a sweet little bat named Spiros. He came to us at a meager 10 grams and the question of his survival was touch and go.
Fortunately, he has overcome the odds, and is currently sitting fat and sassy at a lovely 17 grams as we wait patiently for him to make a full recovery! To read more about his story, check back soon, as Ryan will be writing a Rescue Spotlight piece on our precious Spiros!
The need for pest control is understandable, so it isn't hard to imagine how contraptions like glue traps came about. However, there are much kinder options that are still very effective. PLEASE, please refrain from using adhesive-based forms of pest control. An organization called WildCare has a great article that delves into all the problems of using glue traps as well as the viable, humane alternatives. They also have some awesome infographics on the topic:
Another group called Raptors Are The Solution (RATS) has an informative page on humane pest control for rats and gophers here.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Thank you selecting your pest control products with mindful consideration for the beautiful creatures with whom we share this planet.
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