I grew up with the adage that if you build a better mousetrap people will beat a path to your door. My second masters degree is in product innovation and new product introduction. Central to my training was the idea that improving a product would result in people beating a path to your door. It is interesting to note that the origins of this phrase are murky but most people know the adage and will repeat it indicating it is a somewhat universal belief.
Well … maybe not if this New York Times article is any indication … https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/nyregion/glue-trap-rodents-nyc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gk0.QKot.aq4J-js-6hF3&smid=url-share
Banning glue traps is the latest in what some would insist is governmental overreach. I think we all understand the arguments about abortion, but are we really concerned about the suffering of rats? I have used and do use glue traps to catch cockroaches all the time and frankly, I know my wife is not sympathetic to how they die. It is funny to me how much these insects freak her out. She can’t go near a dead one no less be anywhere near a live one. She is less afraid of poisonous spiders or snakes. But, I do have to admit I have some empathy for field mice.
I know people who won’t even swat a mosquito because killing an insect is wrong to them. Sorry, that doesn’t bother me at all. However, the idea of a field mouse dying a slow and painful death does disturb me a bit. I have used glue traps and put a few of those little critters out of their misery when I found them in the traps.
Product innovation has moved from “utility” … aka how well a product works to achieve an end result to something much fuzzier to define. How do we define ridding the house of something that lives and whose life might be deemed valuable?
Rats bring less sympathy to my mind and heart than field mice. I have never been successful in using live traps for either. I have used live traps to relocate a whole family of raccoons from our back yard successfully. They didn’t like the process, but none of them were harmed. Interestingly I have been warned that you had better move them at least 10 miles from their natural habitat or they will find their way back.
My wife is in a perpetual battle to keep deer out of our garden and to stop them from eating her favorite plants. I love the product named “Not Tonight Deer” which repels deer by coating the plants with an odorant. This seems innocent and effective. The name is a hoot!
Setting all the anecdotes aside, I do find that today’s consumer attitudes are less knowable in these areas without awareness and education. Otherwise, It seems we have selective sensitivity about the pain and suffering of animals. Dogs and cats would never be trapped using inhuman methods … at least knowingly.
But, what about those adorable dolphins we see performing at SeaWorld? Now that we better understand how killer whales have been treated the days of their lives in captivity are numbered. Watch the movie Blackfish if you want to understand that issue. So, once again, if the American consumer is made aware of the “rest of the story” they respond.
The New York Times article points out that today’s consumer perspectives are much more nuanced than the simple attributes we used to justify product innovation. Simply said, it matters how a product is improved and the full supply chain for the product itself. We all remember when diamond mining was discovered to endanger the lives of Africans … we called them blood diamonds. Today’s EVs have a similar supply chain characteristic with the mining of lithium and other metals used in batteries. Fortunately, governments are onto these abuses and the horrible impacts of current production methods are likely to change for the better.
If you want to see how modern methods to reduce cost in things like garlic, chocolate, etc. please watch “Rotten” or “Seaspiracy” and of course “Planet of the Humans.” In every case innovation might cause people to beat a path to your door, but only as long as they are kept in the dark about how they are killing off their brothers and sisters on this planet.
It is time to present the full picture and let the market decide whether they care or not. The jury may still be out on rats, but personally I find our complacency toward the sickness and death of others pretty damning.
I do have a suggestion someone made that we should stop using rats for biological testing and use lawyers instead. Their reasoning was that we were running out of rats and seemed to have an excess of lawyers. Secondly, you don’t become nearly as attached to lawyers. And, finally, there are some things you just can’t get a rat to do.
So far this too has just been a suggestion.