Moral and professional responsibility

[Flight Recorder]

This might be a little bit of a "grey" area for some people, but I was wondering what the responsibility would be for someone who is a certified animal control technician. This guy doesn't seem to have any. Ignoring the ethical aspect of it, he trapped a few animals on something they could possibly get off from. He didn't kill them, he just dumped them into an open bin, allowing the possibility of them getting off and causing havoc. Doesn't seem too professional to me, leaving an animal alive you're supposed to cull. Now for the ethical aspect - what a disgusting jerk. To intentionally leave an animal alive on these things, means a slow and painful death. If the animals don't die from their injuries trying to escape, then dehydration/starvation will certainly kick in. I believe it is a person's ethical responsibility, when using a trap, to monitor it frequently and humanely dispatch any animals caught on it. What he did, IMO, amounts to torture. Not going to even talk about his stupid, childish sounding "eeeks" and "help me help me" - that in itself is pretty disturbing, and someone like that isn't fit to kill any animal. But I am not surprised, there are probably a fair share of nutbags in this profession.

Were it up to me, I'd fire the guy. If I could get away with it, I'd give him a punch in the face too.

[Lagmonster]

This guy is lazy and inhumane, and depending on the circumstances possibly acting illegally. But this guy is hopefully an anomaly; most exterminators I know profess their humane and environmentally responsible methods. If I were to point a finger, I'd say homeowners are worse at disposing of trapped mice; they often don't know what constitutes humane execution, and can't bring themselves to do harm or even go near the animal without fealing squeamish, especially if the animal has been wounded by the trap instead of outright killed.

[Darmalus]

This guy is lazy and inhumane, and depending on the circumstances possibly acting illegally. But this guy is hopefully an anomaly; most exterminators I know profess their humane and environmentally responsible methods. If I were to point a finger, I'd say homeowners are worse at disposing of trapped mice; they often don't know what constitutes humane execution, and can't bring themselves to do harm or even go near the animal without fealing squeamish, especially if the animal has been wounded by the trap instead of outright killed.

We don't have any traps, but my cats have occasionally brought me not-quite-dead-yet mice and rats. What would be a humane way to finish them off? I don't like the buggers, but have no desire to cause unnecessary suffering either.

[Formless]

That probably depends on the cat. One of my cats likes to play with mice it catches and may never get around to eating it (birds are another story). One of my others is a true hunter, and just pounces right on their necks and kills them instantly, sometimes right under the other cat's nose. Take that for what its worth.

[Korto]

Plastic bag and hammer, plastic bag and hard swing against concrete, don't bother with the bag and hold it by the tail and swing it hard and sharp against concrete.
Useful with reusable traps that don't kill, is drop the animal, trap and all, in a bucket of water. Ensure that the animal is submerged (or they'll only drown after paddling around for ages and exhausting themselves, defeating the purpose). Drowning isn't pleasant, but they panic and die very quickly, making it much more humane then poisons.

Many people are too interested in being humane to themselves, by coming up with ways of killing that involve the creature dying out of sight and leaving a tidy corpse (it's just sleeping!) so they don't have to face and accept what they're doing, then in being humane to the animals.

[TheFeniX]

What you learned in 3rd grade science works: make a volcano.... just mix Baking Soda and Vinegar while the rodent is trapped in a plastic container. 3 things, generally, every household has.

Smashing isn't that great because, unless you have the balls for it, you can't guarantee a clean hit/kill. Then again, this is how I euthanized my sick fish: get a glass (actual glass, preferably thick like a beer glass) and place the edge right behind the head and press hard or smash from a few inches away. The fish head will pop off almost instantly. This is much more difficult on a squirming rodent making it harder to break the spine. CO2 poisoning works much better and is less painful.

Also, the guy in the youtube video is someone I wouldn't let near my kids. People who torture animals are pretty fucked up.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This might be a little bit of a "grey" area for some people, but I was wondering what the responsibility would be for someone who is a certified animal control technician. This guy doesn't seem to have any. Ignoring the ethical aspect of it, he trapped a few animals on something they could possibly get off from. He didn't kill them, he just dumped them into an open bin, allowing the possibility of them getting off and causing havoc. Doesn't seem too professional to me, leaving an animal alive you're supposed to cull. Now for the ethical aspect - what a disgusting jerk. To intentionally leave an animal alive on these things, means a slow and painful death. If the animals don't die from their injuries trying to escape, then dehydration/starvation will certainly kick in. I believe it is a person's ethical responsibility, when using a trap, to monitor it frequently and humanely dispatch any animals caught on it. What he did, IMO, amounts to torture. Not going to even talk about his stupid, childish sounding "eeeks" and "help me help me" - that in itself is pretty disturbing, and someone like that isn't fit to kill any animal. But I am not surprised, there are probably a fair share of nutbags in this profession.

Were it up to me, I'd fire the guy. If I could get away with it, I'd give him a punch in the face too.

That sort of sadistic crap is... wow. Not just Wow, but torturing animals for shits and giggles is one of the signs that someone might be really fucked up and violent against people. If this were not some dude on youtube I would report him to civil authorities.

What you learned in 3rd grade science works: make a volcano.... just mix Baking Soda and Vinegar while the rodent is trapped in a plastic container. 3 things, generally, every household has.

No. Just... No. Here is the problem, CO2 only kills quickly and painlessly in extremely high concentrations applied almost instantly. It induces euphoria when that happens. In order to pull that off properly you need a sealed pressurized container and a bottle of compressed CO2. If you dont do that, the brain senses whether or not it is suffocation based on CO2 in the blood. You will send the animal into a panic, and worse, only kill it slowly.

If you want to suffocate painlessly, use a sealed container and nitrogen gas, or a vacuum pump in a sealed container to drop air pressure. They still vent CO2, but hypoxia itself is painless.

Needless to say, you need to invest in equipment for this sort of thing.

Massive instantaneously applied bodily trauma is the best way for an unequipped layperson. The best method is to grab the rat by the tail and swing its head against the edge of a wall or countertop. This is a bit messy (what with the tooth and bone shrapnel that can happen), but the deceleration applied directly against the skull and neck wil absolutely destroy both. If you want less mess, a garbage bag, a few good winding swings to bring up the velocity, and then concrete.

[Lagmonster]

I find many urban dwellers have a blind spot to their own lethality where it comes to small animals; slapstick comedy films like to show small mammals outsmarting or even overpowering humans, or driving them into a paniced frenzy so that they injure themselves. In real life, a healthy adult should be able to instantly kill just about any rodent with his two hands if nothing else presents itself. Not that I am recommending the practice, but just to illustrate that it's not so difficult to do that you have any excuse to do it poorly. Squeamishness and trepidation on the part of people trying to half-heartedly dispose of pests, does a lot more to inflict suffering than you might think.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd think of it like this: what kind of 100-foot giant worth his salt could possibly fail to kill a normal human being, assuming the giant actually got his hands on the person?

Humans have that kind of massive size advantage over rodents.