Mumbai: Following an appeal from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India (PETA India), Wellness Forever, India’s third-largest pharmacy and lifestyle retail chain, stopped selling glue traps. These traps are trays coated with a sticky adhesive that ensnares small animals, who can suffer for days before dying. The decision affects more than 400 stores and the company’s website.The move comes after 32 states and union territories across India prohibited the manufacture, use, and sale of cruel glue traps in response to PETA India’s efforts. Amazon India, Meesho, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and JioMart have also removed listings for glue traps after being contacted by animal welfare activists. Rajmandir Hypermarket stopped selling glue traps at its stores across the national capital.“Animals caught in glue traps face a hideously slow and agonising death as they struggle, panic, and rip their own skin off in a desperate attempt to escape,” said PETA India Corporate Affairs Liaison, Umang Sharma. “PETA India commends Wellness Forever for protecting wildlife and other small animals from these vile devices and calls on all other retailers to follow suit,” he added.Wildlife, including birds, snakes, lizards, mice, rats, and squirrels, and other small animals like kittens, who get stuck in the glue, struggle desperately to escape. Some animals chew off their own limbs in their desperate attempts. Animals stuck on the boards ultimately succumb to shock, dehydration, asphyxiation, or blood loss. They continue to produce urine and faeces, through which pathogens including hantavirus, salmonella, and the bacteria that cause leptospirosis are transmitted, posing a major health hazard. Glue traps are also largely ineffective because they neglect to address the source of the problem: as long as food remains accessible, more animals will move in to take the place of those who were killed.PETA India advises that the only long-term way to control rodent populations is to make the area unattractive or inaccessible to them by eliminating their food sources, sealing rubbish containers, and reducing hiding places.
