O.k. Remember - it's a Mind Sieve summary - warning - or is this an assurance? - no actual photos of slug gore are contained in the following post......

IN DEFENSE OF SLUGS…the garden kind
Slugs - slimy, slick, mushy, little creatures munching their way through summer gardens…hungry, trying to survive on prize lettuce and specimen hostas!

Discussions with fellow gardeners turn to methods of slug extermination –
Method #1 the “beer in a saucer method”, designed to lure the “sweet-seeking” slugs into drinking and drowning…..this may work until one (the gardener) feels somewhat conspicuous buying large quantities of the cheapest available local beer and is driven to haunting out of the way Seven Elevens for cheap beer buying!

Method #2 - generally hissed through tersely pursed lips – “pour salt on them, they dissolve!”

Dissolve? What kind of painful, heartless death sentence is that? - just for eating lettuce?
In defense of these creatures, found to be so repugnant in a gardener’s life - slugs mate, (I think) reproduce, (I’m sure) and in general, slime through life doing their own thing. Eating, sleeping, sliming.

Should we be more tolerant of these creatures? Slug free zones could be created via small sized slug warnings –“Crossings could be dangerous – Beware of Shakers.” “Garden Clogs Zone” – oh yes, some people step on them, smush them to death, grind them into the ground with just the right pivot.

In further defense, have you ever looked closely at a slug? – you know….it looks back at you. Consider this, if you saw the slug looking back at you, would you have a harder time killing it so cruelly?

When a slug looks back at you, do you think it hopes you won’t harm or kill it? Do you think it is frightened? Do you think it’s been told of slug killers and salt shakers? Do you think it trusts you will do the right thing because you are an American gardener? Do Europeans, South Africans, and Idonesians, etc. have slugs in their gardens and how do they kill them, if they do? Of course, they must kill them – it’s the only thing to do with slugs isn’t it?

O.k., o.k., I’ve gone soft on slugs. I don’t and won’t pour salt on the slugs in my garden! I’ve come up with what works best for me and the slugs, maybe…

Method #3 – Send them on vacation. Pick them up with gloved hand, and send them on an all expense air trip to places unknown or more humanely, place them in a fresh bunch of cut grass, or already mutilated hosta leaf and send them traveling via the garden refuse bin. It’s the best idea to avoid the salt thing….a long trip somewhere for the slug that will gorge himself to death on a sweet hosta leaf rather than face the dreaded shaker!