Lowe’s to Face Probe Over Glue Trap Sales at Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release:
May 26, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

When Lowe’s holds its virtual annual meeting of shareholders tomorrow, PETA will be there to ask the company when it will stop selling glue traps, which take days to kill animals from starvation, suffocation, or blood loss.

“As long as glue traps remain on Lowe’s shelves, the company will be complicit in small animals’ agonizing deaths,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Lowe’s to help stop this egregious suffering by taking these vile traps out of its inventory.”

Glue traps ensnare wildlife—including rodents and even birds who get stuck in the adhesive—who frantically rip out their fur or feathers, chew off their limbs, and break their bones while struggling to escape before succumbing to shock, dehydration, asphyxiation, or blood loss. Glue traps also fail as a long-term solution because they don’t address 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.

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

PETA’s shareholder question follows.

My name is Laura Shields, and I’m here on behalf of PETA. For at least 15 years, PETA has been meeting with Lowe’s executives, urging them to stop selling abhorrent glue traps—boards coated with an extremely strong adhesive intended to immobilize animals. Animals panic in the glue, struggle, and even resort to ripping their skin or chewing their limbs off in order to escape. Glue trap manufacturers, including Tomcat (whose traps are sold at Lowe’s), direct consumers to throw the traps in the garbage, without any regard for the animal’s life. It can take days for the animals to die from blood loss, dehydration, or suffocation. Lowe’s is keenly aware of all this. Our company has taken a number of steps over the years to try to move people away from glue traps, but more and more companies and even countries—England is the latest—are acknowledging the suffering these traps inflict and banning them.

PETA’s free 24-hour emergency line routinely assists panicked callers who find animals—such as cats, chipmunks, opossums, moles, birds, reptiles, mice, and rats—stuck on glue traps often purchased from Lowe’s. There are numerous other options available to deal with uninvited guests in homes, so there is simply no excuse for continuing to sell these pans of pain.

My question is this: When will Lowe’s do what it knows is right and end the sale of glue traps?