Wasp trap TRAPSTIK should be banned immediately
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Nature Canada is happy to report that efforts to ban the sale and use of Rescue’s Trapstik product have resulted in the Producer pulling its product from the shelves of its distributors. We commend the company on taking this decision so fast, and hopefully preventing any further unnecessary suffering of wildlife. We also urge anyone who has the product in use currently to immediately remove it from the environment and dispose of it safely. If you find birds or bats stuck to the product, please transport it/ them immediately to an animal care centre on this list.
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Ted Cheskey
Senior Conservation Manager
We call on the stores that market the RESCUE product called Trapstik, a wasp and insect trap, to remove the product from their shelves immediately. The product is a visual lure designed to attract wasps, then hold them to a sticky surface until they die. It also can capture small birds, such as a flock of Chickadees, as shown in the images on this news clip from CTV.
The company claims to have sold over a million and received 12 people reports of bird captures. Let’s be clear what their damage control statement means and doesn’t mean. Twelve people may have reported bird kills, but how many others observed bird kills but did not report them? How many people felt guilt or fear of prosecution because they thought that they had broken a law (which they had – it is illegal to harm a migratory bird in Canada or the US for that matter), or because they simply didn’t care? Probably the number of unreported bird deaths is far higher than the reported number.
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
In reviewing some website postings on the product, I came across the following one that sings praises to the product but in the video of “proof” of its effectiveness, inadvertently shows that it catches many other animals than those targeted, including even a bat! The Little Brown Myotis (formerly Little Brown Bat) is an endangered species in Canada.
Based on the number of insects on the killing stick in the video, it is not a stretch to imagine the Red-breasted Nuthatch, which is calling in the background in the video, landing on the stick to feed on the insects and becoming entrapped itself.
In our view, this product poses far too great a risk to wildlife and should be immediately removed from store shelves and banned in Canada. We call on the retailers and any other distributors to immediately remove this product from their shelves and on the federal government to declare this product a hazardous substance to birds and bats and ban its use. We also call on Canadians, including retailers and distributors, to be more vigilant and skeptical about these types of products that result in environmental damages not foreseen by their designers. Companies that sell and these types of products ultimately share in the liabilities resulting from their use.
