Glue Traps - A Danger to Wildlife

Glue traps are widely used and though they work great for catching hornets, they also caught a couple of young Black-capped Chickadees this summer. Two of them were brought in to SSCC stuck to the same glue trap. Our experienced wildlife manager, NaTasha, was able to use olive oil to slowly remove them from the trap to avoid damaging the feathers. This was extremely stressful for one of the chickadees, while the other seemed to be trying to eat the flies while he was stuck to the trap! This is a great story, but it also shows the issues with using glue traps and other types of traps that allow for larger birds or animals to be trapped by them. Using traps that are tailored specifically for particular species (rather than glue, snap, or zap traps) could potentially save the lives of many wildlife.