Free Smart Mouse Trap

Walk down the “pest” control aisle of the average home and garden store, and you may get the impression that we are at war with every other living creature (aside from our pets)!

We encourage a different perspective, one where humans are part of — not apart from — the rest of the living world, and where the goal is peaceful co-existence.

Humane Mouse Control

In New Hampshire, mice getting into the home is a common problem, especially in the fall when these animals are looking for a warm place to spend the winter. Unfortunately, most home and garden stores are in the business of selling inhumane, temporary solutions for dealing with mice. 

Of the many lethal traps and poisons for sale, glue traps may well be the cruelest. Glue traps kill indiscriminately, and animals stuck to them die slowly of hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion.

Poison is also inhumane, as well as irresponsible. Poison bait blocks are formulated to contain only a low dose of poison, so that if a child or pet accidentally ingests the product, it will not be fatal. But for the mouse, the low dose means a slow death, often spanning days. In their sluggish state, poisoned mice are easy targets for predators, including foxes, eagles, and other protected birds, who often become sick and die from consuming poisoned mice.

The Smart Mouse Trap

Compassionate and responsible approaches for dealing with mice include exclusion, natural odor repellents, and ultrasonic devices. If uninvited guests still manage to get in, you can use a live mouse trap to catch and relocate them outside in a brushy or wooded area.

Get Your Smart Mouse Trap

Our favorite live mouse trap is the Smart Mouse Trap, because of its effective and thoughtful design. We like it so much that we are offering free samples while supplies last. (For NH residents only. One trap per household.)

In return for your free trap, we will add you to our News & Events email list and send a follow-up message in about a month to ask about your experience with the Smart Mouse Trap. Take pictures and we’ll post them on social media!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • This offer is for New Hampshire residents only.
  • Recipients will be added to our News & Events email list.

About The Smart Mouse Trap

A special feature of the Smart Mouse Trap is its time-delay release mechanism, which involves inserting a cracker into a slot. When the inner door is removed, the cracker becomes a second door that the mouse will chew through to exit the trap. The delay while the mouse chews protects you from contact with the mouse, and also allows the mouse to escape without panic.

“I have Smart-Trapped 53 mice and released them, humanely...”

“Your Smart Mouse Trap is a beautiful expression of humaneness. Once caught, the mice can be released in the woods, to be free and in peace.”

Letter to the Editor: Here’s hoping pandemic kills the fur business

Letter to the Editor
Union Leader
December 2, 2020

Here’s hoping pandemic kills off the fur business

It has been a difficult year for businesses, but one business that should fail is the fur business. Noted for its cruelty, it is a business we can do without. It is certainly a business a fur-bearing animal can do without. Whether being intensively confined on a fur farm and anally electrocuted or caught in a body-gripping trap and bashed in the head until dead, the animals will rejoice at the end of these cruel industries if they could. Many of us will rejoice with them and for them.

Fur-free Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when animal rights activists take to the streets to protest fur will not happen in many areas this year. In NH, the protest that targets trapping has been canceled.

Trappers are an uncaring bunch of people. If you are on social media, you have probably seen the pictures; the smiling trappers squatting just out of reach of the bloody pawed frightened animal. What kind of person thinks this is something to be proud enough of that he would pose for a picture while a living and breathing animal is suffering behind him?

Please keep the animals who suffer and die for fur in your thoughts when you begin to shop. Many retailers have stopped selling fur. If we refuse to buy it, the rest will follow. Be kind, you will never regret it.

LINDA DIONNE
Raymond

Opinion/Letter: Taking turkey’s life unnecessary

Letter to the Editor
Portsmouth Herald
November 19, 2020

To the Editor:

The New Hampshire Animal Rights League would like to respond to Alexander LaCasse’s article in the Portsmouth Herald featuring the Stratham farm where customers are invited to slaughter their own Thanksgiving turkey.

If, to paraphrase the author, the idea of killing your own Thanksgiving turkey is enough to make you consider becoming a vegetarian, we think you’re on the right track. No matter what words are used to describe the slaughter — whether one equates animals to crops and calls it a “harvest” or twists it into a religious ritual and calls it “spiritual” and “sacred” — in the end it is simply the unnecessary taking of a life.

We do acknowledge that the turkeys on the Stratham farm have a much better life and death than the vast majority raised for Thanksgiving (an estimated 45 million, for whom standard agricultural practice includes cutting off the beaks and toes of poults without anesthesia), but if the goal is improved animal welfare, not considering turkeys food would do far more to reduce animal suffering than seeking out a nicer way to kill one bird, once a year.

As a final point, backyard slaughterers employing the knife-braining technique, which is commonly used and imagined humane, should be aware that while this can immobilize the turkey, the bird may only be paralyzed, not unconscious, and thus fully experiencing its death despite being unable to move its muscles.

Members of the New Hampshire Animal Rights League will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with delicious vegan dishes that do not cause animal suffering. Check the freezer section of your grocery store for vegan holiday roasts. Why not make your “new Thanksgiving tradition” a meal that does not cause harm to animals.

James Glover, president
NH Animal Rights League, Inc.

Nov 13, 2021 – Annual Meeting & Gentle Thanksgiving

NH Audubon McLane Center
84 Silk Farm Road
Concord, 03301 United States
12:00 – 4:00 p.m.

We’re doing things a bit differently this year! In place of our usual potluck gathering, this year’s feast will be catered by Madeline and Olivia of New Roots Plant-Based Meal Prep in Manchester.

Tickets are $21* for Adults and $10 for children (10 and under).

  • Seating is limited, so buy your tickets today! No tickets sold at door.
  • Tickets sales will end Oct. 30.
  • Ticket purchases are non-refundable.
  • Masks required when not seated at your table.

(Click to enlarge flyer.)

Guest Speakers

Patrick Battuello & Nicole Arciello

of Horseracing Wrongs

Patrick is the founder of Horseracing Wrongs, a non-profit committed to eradicating horseracing in the United States.

Through his seminal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) reporting, Patrick has become recognized as the nation’s foremost expert on racehorse deaths.

He and his work have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, Deadspin, HBO’s “Real Sports,” CNN, ESPN, among others.

Patrick has also testified on the topic of horseracing before the New York State Senate.

* If you would like to attend but the ticket price is not within your budget, please contact us.

Opinion/Letter: We need to love farm animals as we love our pets

Letter to the Editor
Portsmouth Herald
October 29, 2020

We need to love farm animals as we love our pets

This month, there were wonderful stories in this paper about Bob the injured seagull, Coconuts the lost cat, and Dr. Hunt’s book “Enjoy your Pets; don’t forget to give them a Hug”. The story about Bob the seagull was particularly poignant because most of us know how it feels to be close to an animal, look into their eyes, and pick them up and feel their bodies. It was the beginning of a love story for Alicia. She named the seagull and did all she could to comfort him and try to save his life. And there it is, the aha moment when we see an animal as an individual, a being capable of suffering and we want to protect them.

However, we don’t look into the eyes of the chickens, cows, lambs, and pigs whose bodies and milk products are displayed in huge quantities in our markets. We don’t see the male chicks and calves that are immediately killed because they are not needed as egg layers or milk producers. We don’t hear their cries, nor do we do the killing or the washing and dismembering.

Most people are completely unaware of the reality of what is happening to these animals. Don’t be fooled by the cheese package that shows a mother and her calf almost touching noses. It doesn’t happen. 99% of animal products come from large factory farms where there is unmitigated suffering for millions of animals who are bred into existence to satiate our immense and highly commercialized appetite for animal products. Speed and profit are the goals of factory farms and there is no room for humane treatment.

Speciesism is allowing one’s own interests and desires to override the interests of another species, even if that means the other species suffers. The most routine farming practices would be illegal if perpetrated against cats and dogs yet they have the same feelings and perceptions. I’ll leave it there for everyone to research further… but you need to know that every dollar we spend on animal products supports cruelty and suffering for many individuals that are just like Bob the seagull and Coconuts the cat.

CHERI BACH
Portsmouth

 

November 2020 Newsletter

The November 2020 Newsletter for the New Hampshire Animal Rights Group is now available.

We hope that you enjoy this expanded holiday edition. Join us for some exciting upcoming events, including our first ever virtual annual meeting on November 21st and online cooking demo with Carrie from Joyfull Eats!

Learn about our ongoing programs like our matching beaver grant and recently added “Send Someone a Compassion Pack.”

Don’t forget to check out the Vegan Holiday Table on the last page!

Letter to the Postmaster General

This letter was sent in response to an action alert from United Poultry Concerns (Shipping Baby Chicks Through the Mail is Inhumane and Should Be Stopped).

NHARL-logo-rect

October 28, 2020

The Honorable Louis DeJoy
Postmaster General
United States Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza West, SW
Washington, DC 20260

Dear Mr. DeJoy:

With the media reporting on the deaths of thousands of newborn chicks as a result of delays and other issues affecting the United States Postal Service, our organization has heard from a number of people who were shocked to learn that living animals are regularly shipped around the country as if they were inanimate objects.

While incidents of entire shipments of chicks perishing have received public attention, what is still largely hidden from people is that newborn chicks dying in the custody of the United States Postal Service is a common, everyday occurrence.

Mailing chicks may have seemed like a good idea a hundred years ago, but it has grown into a large and callous industry that is out of step with the values of modern society. Shipping live animals through the Postal Service should be prohibited.

We respectfully urge you to review the custom of shipping baby chicks and other small animals with an eye toward ending this inherently cruel practice.

Sincerely,
James Glover, President

NH Animal Rights League, Inc.
P.O. Box 4211
Concord, New Hampshire 03302
nhanimalrights.org

In response, we received the following form letter from a USPS Customer Experience Specialist: