People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently named Dr. Nigel Binns as its Person of the Year. Binns’ major accomplishment? He developed an extremely effective way to kill mice.
According to a PETA press release,
Unlike cruel poisons, snaps, and glue traps — which can cause mice and rats to suffer in agony for hours or days — the RADAR trap painlessly gasses trapped rodents with carbon dioxide.
Binns is chief biologist for UK pest control company Rentokil. According to a New Scientist story on his trap,
Nigel Binns, Rentokil’s chief biologist, wanted a trap that would kill only target animals, and do so humanely. It would then alert a pest controller that the trap needed attention. Inside its white plastic enclosure, a pressure pad senses the weight of an animal’s paw, and closes the door if the footfall matches the weight of a rat or mouse. Squirrels or small rabbits are spared, he says. Gas released from a carbon dioxide capsule then kills the vermin humanely.
Binns tells New Scientist that computer data centers might be one big customer of his trap, since its constant monitoring and instant notification would help reduce rat problems that some data centers have experienced.
Sources:
Builder of more humane mousetrap recognized as PETA’s ‘Person of the Year’. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 2005.
UR r@ is in the trap. New Scientist, November 17, 2005.
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