Pest control: Selling traps and poisons on Trade Me

Animal traps

The Animal Welfare Act 1999 restricts the sale and use of leg-hold (gin) traps and glue board traps for trapping animals. To give members clear guidelines to follow, we’ve banned all hard-jawed leg hold traps and glue traps for rodents from Trade Me.

Hard jawed leg-hold traps

Leg-hold traps (also called gin traps) have a plate trigger and metal jaws which are designed to clamp around an animal’s leg. These kinds of traps can maim an animal, leaving it in all sorts of pain.

The main animal welfare concerns are:

injury and distress to the trapped animal
unnecessary suffering if it's held in the trap too long
potential for suffering if an injured animal escapes.

These traps, regardless of size and whether the trap has teeth or not, are not allowed to be listed on Trade Me. You cannot modify a hard-jawed trap to make it soft-jawed. Leg-hold traps of any type can’t be used within 150 metres of a dwelling without the permission of the occupier or in any area where the traps are likely to catch a pet.

Pest control poisons

All poisons or ‘vertebrate toxic agents’ used in Aotearoa must be approved by the Ministry for Primary Industries. It’s only allowed if it kills as humanely as possible.

Remember any hazardous substances must be properly registered under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act before you sell them in New Zealand.

Cockroach bait

While it can be imported into New Zealand, cockroach bait (or more specifically, Advion cockroach bait) requires an importation permit from MPI, declaring that the correct process for importation has been followed.

Without a permit, bringing cockroach bait into New Zealand is a breach of the Biosecurity Act 1993.

Cockroach bait contains a bunch of different chemicals, however MPI is worried about Advion bait specifically due to one of the ingredients: honey. The honey in this bait hasn’t been treated sufficiently to reduce the risk of introducing exotic pathogens to our native bee population.

While cockroach bait can be imported legitimately, MPI is still investigating the potential harm it may cause to our environment. Until a solid ruling has been made, we don’t allow it on Trade Me.

Author

Trust and Safety