PETA to the Home Depot: Join Other Retailers in Ending Sales of Glue Traps

Group Will Tell Company, 'You Can Do It--We Can Help,' at Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2010

Contact:
Stephanie Corrigan  757-622-7382

Atlanta -- A representative of PETA, which owns stock in The Home Depot, will question the home-improvement giant at its annual meeting in Atlanta on Thursday. PETA wants to know why the company still sells glue traps when so many other retailers have stopped carrying the cruel devices. The Home Depot--which operates approximately 2,200 stores in North America and China--is the world's largest home-improvement chain and the second-largest U.S. retailer after Walmart:

When:     Thursday, May 20, 9 a.m.
Where:    Cobb Galleria Centre, 2 Galleria Pkwy., Atlanta

"Being immobilized by glue and left to die is like something out of a horror movie," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "If so many of the nation's leading retailers can ban the sale of glue traps and stop the prolonged, agonizing suffering that these traps cause, so can The Home Depot."

Glue traps are pieces of plastic or cardboard coated with a strong adhesive. After getting caught on the traps, panicked animals struggle to escape--often breaking their bones and ripping their flesh, fur, and feathers off their bodies in the process. Some animals chew off their own limbs in an attempt to free themselves, and others get their noses, mouths, or beaks stuck in the glue. The more that the animals struggle, the more they become entangled in the adhesive, only to die from exhaustion, injury, shock, dehydration, asphyxiation, or blood loss. Glue traps are also ineffective and fail to address the source of the problem--more mice simply move in to take the place of animals who have been killed.

Many major retailers--including Albertsons, CVS, Rite Aid, Safeway, and Walgreens--recognize how cruel and indiscriminate glue traps are and have pulled the cruel devices from their shelves.

PETA's statement is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.