The Facebook user said, “rats infestation issue at this market is a ongoing problem, one rat scurried past as we were attending to the kitten.”A Facebook user Grace Chai shared a video of a kitten stuck in a glue trap that was meant for rats at a wet market at Tampines Street 81. She said that she found the kitten being exhausted it it tried to free itself from the trap for hours.
SPCA has in the previous years, appealed to AVA to institute a ban of glue-board traps because of the suffering caused to animals that are trapped on them, not only rats, but other species. In 2019, there were several reports that community cats in the Redhill area were getting hurt by glue traps. This happened after a minimart in that area engaged a pest control company to help resolve the rats issue there. The minimart manager then said that she had to put up with the rat infestation for over two years. She said the glue traps have helped with the minimart’s pest issues and there have been days where up to three rats were caught in the traps.
AVA said a set of guidelines on responsible use of glue traps had been developed by the agency, in consultation with the pest control industry and the National Environment Agency , to safeguard animal welfare and minimise the trapping of non-target animals. These were the guidelines used by most vector control operators, it said.