A pair of vice grips, and a pry bar
makes short work of removing staples from wooden pallets. Some of my pallets were loaded with them. I tried other methods to remove them, but this worked best. It seems that the staples have glue on them, making them resistant to extraction.
I had to pound some of the staples
from the bottom, a bit, to expose more of the head to get the vice grips clamped on good. It doesn't take much though. I thought I could just pound them all the way out, but they bend easily. Also you have to still pull them out at the end, so I just started using the vice grips at the beginning. It just saves time, and is easy once you get into the rhythm.