Pest control presents genuine human-wildlife conflicts, but evidence shows that many traditional lethal methods are both cruel and ineffective — with humane alternatives performing better.
The welfare costs of traditional pest control are large and largely invisible. Glue trap victims can struggle for hours or days before dying; poison bait causes internal haemorrhage that may take a week; poorly checked traps leave animals suffering for extended periods. These outcomes are not only cruel but unnecessary: modern humane pest control — exclusion, targeted trapping with rapid despatch, contraception, deterrence — achieves population management goals with dramatically lower welfare impact. The industry has been slow to transition because lethal methods are cheap and normalised, not because they are more effective.