Be Kind to Rats! PETA Appeal Hits Local Airwaves

For Immediate Release:
September 27, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Did you know that rats risk their lives to save their young and that—just like us—they fall in love and giggle when tickled? These intriguing and little-known facts are being shared this week on WCHI-FM 95.5 in a spot narrated by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk as part of PETA’s series “A Minute for the Animals.” The pro-rat appeal urges Chicagoans to see rats as the complex individuals they are and never to use glue traps—trays coated with a strong adhesive that inflict prolonged suffering on the animals caught on them.

“Rats are sensitive individuals who love their families, feel pain and fear, and value their own lives,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “PETA is urging everyone to show these animals some kindness and avoid vile glue traps, which cause slow and painful deaths.”

Animals—including rats, mice, squirrels, snakes, and birds—who get stuck on glue traps struggle desperately to escape before finally succumbing to shock, dehydration, asphyxiation, or blood loss. Glue traps fail as a solution because they neglect the source of the problem: As long as food remains available, more animals will move in to take the place of those who have been killed.

The ad is running between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. through Friday, September 30.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.