All Creatures Great and Small…

I know I'm borrowing that title from the PBS series but I'm hoping my like-mindedness will grant me forgiveness. I use the phrase all the time with my partner and friends. Whether it be a spider crawling up the wall in the kitchen, a mouse nest I discovered in the bottom of a stack of plant pots in spring or virtually any creature that has fallen into the pool or got trapped in the skimmer, I try my best to rescue, relocate and release if at all possible. Back when we used to let the cats outside, Paulie, our skittish long-haired black cat came in proudly offering a little field mouse. I pounced… my kneecaps hitting the tile floor in the kitchen. Painfully, I still scrambled to grab the mouse from him. Another time, out on the back porch it was a bird. I was so relieved to release it into the sky again. After that, the cats didn't go out any longer. I was covering a floor time shift at the real estate office a few months ago. It was a quiet, rainy afternoon and I was happy to hear footsteps coming down the ramp since I was the only one in the building. The visitor turned out to be a friendly guy from the contracted pest control company doing his monthly check on the building. After introductions, I mentioned in an off-handed sort of way that I hoped his company didn't use glue traps to catch rodents. He surprised and disappointed me when he let me know they certainly did. He further explained what seemed like a training diatribe on the vile nature of mice. I wasn't about to pontificate about my animal cruelty beliefs. This guy is just making his living and obviously had been desensitized during his training period. Glue traps are available everywhere — from Walmart to your local grocery store. Originating in the 1970s, their use has increased greatly over the years, finally coming to the attention of animal cruelty groups such as PETA who launched a campaign to ring the alarm about how heinous the devices are. Glue traps are also known as glue boards and are very simple. An adhesive-laden piece of cardboard or plastic, usually laced with a food-based attractant scent, the traps are placed wherever mice and other problem rodents have been detected. The mouse simply gets stuck to the board and immobilized. Just like those old sticky fly trap films. Death can take anywhere from a few hours to two days. Dehydration, starvation and blood loss from their struggle are the typical causes. "Lucky" mice suffocate when their mouth and nostrils come in contact with the adhesive and death is quick. Pest control is a necessary part of home ownership. The best and kindest way to keep flying, crawling and burrowing creatures out of our homes is deterrents. From window screens to judicious monitoring and sealing up even the tiniest of crevices that allow entry into your house, the most effective pest control is simply keeping creatures out to begin with. Practically speaking, it is difficult to detect every little passageway an insect or a mouse might take advantage of. Owning a home means keeping guard over our substantial investment. Any wood-boring insects have got to be eradicated quickly. Ant invasions are another problem that's more about nuisance and cleanliness. Mice are indeed filthy little creatures; their feces and urine can make a home uninhabitable in the worst cases. Luckily, there are pest control companies that are a bit more "green" than others. Seek them out if you feel you need professional help. If you're a DIY kind of homeowner, the most important action to take is to seal up every single entry point a rodent or bug can squeeze through. That means lots of caulking and cut-to-fit pieces of screening over any openings, drains, vent pipes, etc. If you've got an active mouse population in your house, live trapping can be exhausting and ultimately futile, but a snap trap is a zillion times more humane than those glue traps, and be sure to check them daily. Occasionally a mouse or flying squirrel in the attic will be only snapped by a single limb or tail and needs to be humanely euthanized. Whenever I've read about someone gathering their glue traps with live mice stuck to them and simply tossing them in the trash, my gut clenches. I just can't fathom how a conscientious thinking person could do that. Mouse-hugger diatribe over. Thank you for getting through this piece.