The Urban Pantheist

Mus musculus.

This is as humane a mousetrap as you can devise simply with pre-made components. These devices are called "tin cats" or "multi-catch" or just "live traps." The trap is placed agains the wall in a place where mice are known to be traveling. The mice enter one of either entrance at the back sides of the trap; a little spring loaded ramp allows them to enter but blocks them from exiting.

I have added a cup (for water), some almonds for food (and to provide an enticing scent), and some cottonballs so the trapped mice can build a nest. These items are all hot-glued into place for neatness sake--this will make it easier to determine if any mice have been caught.

Any mice that are caught will be humanely euthanized. This can be used in a place where squeamish or sensitive people refuse to allow lethal traps.

Mouse-chewed acorns found in a shed.


Leverett Pond.

After dropping Rebecca off to take the SATs, we took advantage of the early hour and headed to Hammond Pond Reservation.
( More photographs, including moderately gory dead animal )

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.

photos by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #067: House mouse Mus musculus

The house mouse may have had a longer continuous association with humans than any other mammal. The origins of this rodent are shrouded in history, but it is thought to have been native to central Asia. Humans spread into mouse territory thousands of years ago, and the mice have come along as humans spread elsewhere, for the rest of prehistory and into history. It seems likely that the mouse will be the first mammal inadvertently introduced to other planets, should humans continue to expand in that direction.

Cat lovers have cause to thank the house mouse for following humans on trade routes and migrations. The appearance of the house mouse in the stores of grain in Egypt led to the domestication of the house cat. A cat is still the best way to keep mice out of a house, though they aren't perfect. The pursuit of technological improvement is summed up as the search for "a better mousetrap." One modern version of the mousetrap is the "hav-a-hart," which captures the mouse alive, to be released elsewhere. Unfortunately, the natural habitat of the house mouse is indoors, so a mouse "set free" will either find its way back into a house or be preyed upon.

The house mouse is found, like the Indian meal moth and sawtooth grain beetle, anywhere in the world there is grain in storage. But they aren't limited to infesting the human food supply. Nearly any kind of building, structure, or shelter is an invitation to the house mice. If food is provided--and house mice define food much more broadly than we do--the lure of man-made structures becomes irresistable. Nearly everyone has a story about finding mice in an unexpected location. They nest in car heating vents, cupboards and basements, and even, as the picture below shows, under the tracks of the subway.

Mus musculus has transformed itself from a scavenger and a pest, into one of the most significant and valuable species alive. Due to its rapid rate of reproduction, ease of care, and similarity (from a medical point of view) to humans, the house mouse has been domesticated into the lab mouse. Mice are the most useful animal for medical experiments, and breeding them has become a mutli-million dollar specialty industry. Whether we approve of this use of mice or not, we all have benefitted from the research, and have mice to thank for countless treatments and medicines.

Mice are also bred for the pet trade, as pets themselves, or as food for reptiles. Mice make charming, surprisingly intelligent, and sociable pets, their main drawback being a short life span, and a propensity to escape and contribute to the wild mouse population. Captive mice come in a variety of colors, from familiar white to black, as well as tan or pale gray partial albinos, natural grayish brown, and fancy spotted varieties. There are even "nude" mice, bred to have no fur at all.

Other species of mice can be urban, as well. In the Boston area, the white-footed mouse Peromyscus leucopus comes into houses and other buildings when the weather gets cold or abundant food is supplied. There are different species of mice present all over the world, but house mice outcompete them in the household and urban niches.

( Context for photo behind cut )