Rat Catchers and Despatchers Wanted! Urgently!

Say Hi! to Saxmo! He is a very special kind of Fancy Rat, with great talent for music but not all rats have the social skills to make it big in the human world.

The bad news for Rats, Cats and everyone is that we humans have yet to invent a humane way of dispatching unwanted rats, mice and other alleged vermin.

This collective failure is the main focus of a new report from the UK Universities Federation for Animal Welfare reviewing current methods of pest control. "All the methods that are currently available have some fatal flaws and drawbacks. The world could do with more humane methods," says James Kirkwood, the federation's scientific director.

A Speedy departure
So, what would a perfect trap entail and how would it work? The humane ideal is that the animal is killed instantly, or that unconsciousness is induced without any fear or distress. This is a global issue because, as you can imagine, so many pest species are killed using less-than-perfect methods.

The optimal solution is to reduce their nuisance or pest rating, mainly by excluding the animals from human habitation in the first place. How can we do this? Well, both by securing premises physically and through the adaptation of proper cleanliness and hygiene regimes. This will deny rodents and vermin access to all food, water, shelter or nesting sites.

Call in the Experts
What if the worst comes to the worst, what do we do then? The report says that the faint-hearted and inexperienced, are always best advised to call in professional pest controllers. You can very quickly determine how humane the pest controller is by asking a few simple questions.

Revealing Responses
If they respond with emotive terms such as 'smash', 'pulverise', 'stomp', etc and decorates their response with expletives and an aggressive but bizarre mime, re-enacting a life and death struggle with a particularly difficult small rodent, then you can probably assume that 'humane despatch' is somewhat low on their list of priorities.

Having determined that you have inadvertently selected a minor psychopathic personality in the form of an exterminator, someone who makes a living out of snuffing the life out of small animals, you now have to remove them from your home without triggering their 'attack' response. Hopefully, they will have killed something earlier in the day and will have a low level of 'blood-lust', when you tell them to leave your house. You are now thinking that the rodents are less threatening.

Also avoid any exterminator that displays dead animals on his truck's bonnet as a hood ornament or has them hanging from his rear-view mirror. 'At first, I thought they were fluffy dice but then it winked at me!'

Do it Yourself
For those of a stronger constitution and prepared to tackle the problem personally, the emphasis has to be on checking their traps regularly (twice a day, at least) to see if the traps or baits have worked.

The second, more onerous burden is to be prepared to despatch, as quickly as possible, any caught or poisoned but still living animals. As the report dryly notes: "Dealing with live trapped animals, especially rats, is very challenging" and not without serious risk.

Running around the house and garden screaming hysterically does not help, it simply tires you out and distresses the neighbours, again.

Brush with death
The most humane method of dispatch, says the report is the "destruction of the brain by a strong and accurate blow to the head with a suitable implement". Although a toilet brush may be close to hand, a hammer or shoe heel will be more definite and work much better. Don't use your Jimmy Choo's! unless you kept the receipt and are prepared for a long argument at the 'Returns' counter.

However, the report notes that carrying through this distressing task is neither physically simple, nor necessarily safe, the animal will struggle and bite. The report states: "Not everyone is suited temperamentally to these procedures for killing live-caught rodents." I think we can only be thankful for this fact.

Procedures for Despatch
Drowning might seem a better option, since the animal need not be removed from a trap, but the method is ethically problematic. The report cites research from Japan which found it took an average of 2.6 minutes for rats to drown, concluding they must suffer considerably until their demise.

"The consensus view of the UFAW Working Group is that drowning is not a humane method, and should be avoided." Also be aware of this if your local exterminator is of Japanese descent and carries a stopwatch with him. Remember, they are a very competitive nation and will want to set their own record, rather than lose face.

Check Vital Signs
Even if the animal appears dead, "it is very important to confirm death", says the report. So be prepared to check for breathing or other movement, blink reflex when you touch the animals' eye with a cotton-bud, reactions to a sharp pinch a paw, and heartbeat.

Non-lethal Traps
Even animal lovers who use non-lethal traps face awful dilemmas. Release the animal too close to home and it will be streetwise enough to simply find its way straight back. It'll probably be home before you, waiting at the door.

Release it in some remote forest and it will almost certainly suffer terribly through unfamiliarity with its new environment. "In the wild, it's tough," Kirkwood said. "People who set them free may not be doing them any favours, and it's unwise to assume they will be just fine," he said.

I have also heard of animals getting loose in people's cars on the way to being released. This is normally a prelude to a traffic accident or sudden stop and rapid evacuation.

Termination Methods
So what methods are currently available, and which ones are most humane? One, the "stretched rubber ring strangulation system", has been passed as humane in New Zealand. Basically, it garrottes its captor instantly with a rubber ring that closes around the animal's neck, causing death within 2 minutes.

Glue boards are non-toxic, but as with all physical traps, the animals can become injured and suffer serious pain trying to escape. At least the method of dispatch is simple: turn the board upside down and hammer it.

Gas traps that asphyxiate animals with carbon dioxide are seen as pretty convenient, killing the animals within 2 minutes without having to handle them. Some companies even include transmitters in them that notify pest controllers when an animal is caught, but these can only be used by trained pest controllers, and are likely to cause pain before the animal final passes out, according to the report.

Explosives ban
Electrocution devices are also available, but they sometimes don't provide an instantly lethal shock, so the animal suffers severe pain from a heart attack prior to death. "We are not aware of much information about the efficacy and humaneness of these devices," says the report.

Poisons can take a lengthy time to kill, as long as 9 or 10 days for rats, even after they've had a lethal dose and there's always a worry that the poison will also kill predators or family pets consuming the contaminated animals.

We do know that blowing up rodents by pumping explosives into their burrows is completely out. "This is NOT a permitted killing method", says the report (their emphasis). So think again on that one.