Pittsburgh Model Saves Mice From Electrocution, Wins PETA Award

For Immediate Release:
February 18, 2021

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

A local animal rights advocate and model, Anna Kovach, earned herself a “One Can Make a Difference” Award from PETA after she single-handedly persuaded QVC to drop a mousetrap that electrocutes animals.

Kovach insisted that the retailer stop selling the traps—and after hearing from her several times, QVC agreed to her request. This success is the latest in a long line of animal rights advocacy efforts, including using her modeling platform to promote feral cat rescues, cosmetics not tested on animals, and vegan eating.

“Anna’s persistence and QVC’s adaptability won this victory for sensitive mice and rats,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges others to follow her example by sticking to humane rodent control and always speaking up for animals.”

Kovach will receive a certificate and a copy of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s One Can Make a Difference, a book about visionaries as diverse as Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented a lifesaving heart valve, and filmmaker Rebecca Hosking, who used her documentary about albatrosses dying from eating plastic to get England’s first-ever ban on plastic bags passed in her hometown.

Lethal traps, including electronic traps, indiscriminately kill any small animal who comes across them, including birds, squirrels, and kittens. Such traps also backfire: When animals are killed, the resultant spike in the food supply causes accelerated breeding and increased populations among survivors and newcomers.

PETA, which offers a humane mousetrap for sale on its website, recommends the following for humane rodent control:

• Put all food and garbage in sturdy, well-sealed containers that rats and mice can’t chew through, and feed animal companions indoors (and pick up the dishes when they’ve finished eating).
• Trim back vegetation around buildings, stack wood in tight piles away from the house, and seal holes larger than ¼ inch in diameter, cracks in the walls and floors, and gaps around doors, windows, and plumbing.
• After rodent-proofing a building, live-trap and remove any rats and mice still inside. Use a commercially available Havahart trap, or make your own. Check the trap hourly and release any captured rats within 100 yards of where they were caught.

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