"Humane" pest control

[urbpan]

Mouse traps that catch mice alive so that you can release them somewhere else have one problem: You are releasing them somewhere else.

House mice have spent the past several thousand years adapting to living alongside humans, and do really poorly outside. If they are caught alive and released outside, they will spend all their waking time trying to find their way back into the nearest building. Releasing them "in the wild" is more inhumane than killing them.

White-footed mice (sometimes people call them deer mice or field mice) are starting to figure out what house mice have, but they've only had about 500 years to learn the trick. For them, the human-made shelters they live in just happen to work as well as where they normally live in the wild. They could arguably be humanely put outside. But, if they have come inside once, they will come inside again. They require that you make sure that there is no opening in your house that allows them in--a quarter inch crack, or a dime sized hole is plenty adequate.

Then there is the problem that catching wildlife in one place and releasing it somewhere else is illegal in Massachusetts.

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

We had lots of them in the house when I lived in Holland. They didn't bother me or interfere with the food so we just let them be. I'm positive they climbed on my face in the night though. They must have!

[morgi.livejournal.com]

We had mice in the bakery in Waltham. Agile little buggers... it was like the bakery racks were just made to be mouse ladders!

[orejen.livejournal.com]

Huh, I wonder what the law is in NH?

Fortunately, I don't have that particular pest problem. I have 3 cats instead, which can be pests in their own way. (Can you tell they woke me up this morning?)

[donnad.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a place where every winter the field mice came into the house and lived inside the walls and ceilings. After a while you got used to the scratching and chewing noises and the cats randomly bringing a dead one to you as a gift.

We are expecting this year since we moved from the city (where the entire house was surrounded by asphault) out to the country to start seeing mice show up. We have already heard them in the wall and the cats are often seen on alert staring at the kichen wall or under the fridge. The outdoor kitties have brought me three dead field mice so far. I'm looking forward to the day one of my indoor cats gets a mouse, I think it'll be highly amusing to see what they do with it.
(Hey, it's what cats do, I have no problem with it. I expect at least one of my three indoor cats to be a good mouser.)

I don't really have any issues with them in the house, I make sure anything I would be concerned about them getting into and damaging are in sealed plastic boxes. I know they will just go back outside again come spring.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Actually when they call it humane they probably mean for the humans. They get to not feel bad about themselves or have to look at a gross squashed mouse.

[mandy-moon.livejournal.com]

I have the knee-jerk oogie factor over the idea of just letting the mice be in the house, but do you know if they have any zoonotic diseases? I vaguely remember something you can get from their droppings, but it may be an invented memory.

[harrietbrown.livejournal.com]

It's Hantavirus, and no, it's not an invented memory. There was a serious problem on the Navajo Reservation in the 90's with Hantavirus. It was speculated that the human contact came in the form of ceremonial sand paintings, but I think that turned out not to be true and the cause was something else.

Found it:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hanta/hps/noframes/outbreak.htm

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

on the news last nite was a report of someone DYING from the plague - apparently got from checking out a dead mtn lion (his job i think).

if they can only live with humans, are they wild?

i'll have to remember to stop my catch, tag, and release program of college students too :)

#

[mozzer131.livejournal.com]

Yea, a man died recently of the plague. Someone on my friends list knows his mother. Here's the story...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-11-10-plague_N.htm

[mandy-moon.livejournal.com]

Yikes! That is a big one, isn't it? Of course I knew hantavirus- right now I'm just having a massive "duh" moment :)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, house mice have not so far been linked to Hantavirus... which pleases me, since we get house mice every fall, at least one or two. (And we live in New Mexico.) The cats seem to keep them mostly under control. I would NOT be happy if I found deer mice or white-footed mice in the house.

[lindyhoppr.livejournal.com]

Is it more or less humane to let my cats play with them (dying a slow death being ripped apart) while I'm not home? I try to catch them before that happens.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Think of it as enrichment for the cats.

Ahhhh field mice.

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

The favorite savory dinner of my fomer (and late) cat Jazz. Jazz was my second cat and the last one I had as indoor/outdoor.

She was quite the huntress despite her being blindingly WHITE.

Field mice had NO chance of surviving.

Her replacement Embers? Catches the Geckos we get inside, but doesn't kill them. Just puts her paw on them, meows at me until I Come look, lifts her paw up and looks hurt when it scurries off. I then of course go catch said gecko and put it back outside.

[mildmannered.livejournal.com]

I knew a woman once who told me she used a live trap, then couldn't sleep because she kept thinking about how claustrophobic the poor mouse must feel in the trap.

*sigh*

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

The city I live in is dealing with mice right now. We've managed to get them out of the garage (none in the house, thankfully), but there's all over the yard at night. I wouldn't mind so much, except that they're trying to find holes in the siding outside to get into the walls. Plus, my cats are going crazy throwing themselves at windows and doors when they see the mice. (Although taking the cats into the yard last night seemed to quell their desire to catch mice...) Also, I don't like the idea of them invading the coop (not that I keep food in there overnight). My old hen, Tilly, used to catch and kill mice; it was weird but welcome.

[jess-d-ripper.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to catch a mouse in a live trap, so I guess that's pretty humane. Humane and useless.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

What is the best response to unwanted house mice then?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Best response? That's a tough one. The one I practice is this:

1. Determine what they are eating
2. Try to prevent them from eating that (don't leave pet food out, or dishes in the sink, or put cupboard items in containers)
3. Prevent them from getting into your food areas--seal holes when you find them, install screen or mesh if necessary
4. Set traps, baited with whatever they were eating before. I use snaptraps that have the big yellow bait paddle, and put them in the mouse trails with the paddle side flush with the wall. Put two or three in a row, to catch the ones who try to jump over.

[lavenderjones.livejournal.com]

We had mice a few years ago. They ate my expensive scented candles. They were climbing into my hamster cages and eating their food and passing along Tyzzer's Disease - lost a few pets that way. We eventually got rid of them using souped up Warfarin seed because nothing else was working. I think it would be impossible to pack up everything they would eat.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Imagine what we have to do at the zoo.

[frith]

Our rodent problem is pretty mild, though a few years ago we had some rats move into the cave pavilion -- they killed and ate quite a few bats.

[kylara.livejournal.com]

A mouse once chose our house for its new home. It used my mother's bathroom as it's front door, and my mother spotted it in her bedroom. ("It was THIS BIG!" and held her bloodless hands far enough apart to be a small dog.) When the trap finally sprung, she ran and got me to check on it. I found the most adorable little field mouse: dead, with a bar across its chest. I did feel kind of bad; it looked like it should have been a pet, not a pest.

I heard a skittering in the walls the other day, so maybe we have another one.

I believe CA also passed some law that requires us to turn out animals without killing them. It probably doesn't apply to mice since I still see the death traps around, but larger animals can't be destroyed when caught. To my understanding, this is causing problems in Northern California, where wild animals are more of a nuisance.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

When I said "catch and release somewhere else" I didn't mean the Great Outdoors, I meant some other building- maybe your local Wallmart? They'd live like Kings! *g*

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

hey! now you're thinkin'!

This being an election year in the States, there are quite a few campaign offices that might be good release points too.

Get the electrocuter

[(Anonymous)]

We've used a ratzapper at home to dispose of a very large mouse population. None of the other tricks worked (removing food sources, etc.). We did manage to block most of the openings in our rubble foundation, and now just get one or two every fall.

The zapper is GREAT: fast and effective. It probably will work even at the zoo. I remember finding some sort of multi-story version for warehouse use when I was searching for a better mouse trap. Maybe that's what you need?