Daily Walrus - Helping People Help Animals

Some people have mice as pets.  To the rest of us they are unwelcome house guests.  Unfortunately, they aren’t good at picking up signals that you would like them to leave.    Thus, the cruel and unusual mousetrap was born. 

It’s amazing that the first design (the one with the springloaded bar) is still commonly used.  Mouse trap design has come a long way, yet people are still buying these old fashioned death machines.  If the mouse is lucky, these traps will snap its neck or decapitate it.  If it’s unlucky, bones will be crushed, and it will suffer until it dies.  For a while the only alternative had been glue traps, which are even more cruel!  Glue traps have bait for the mouse positioned on one of the stickiest glues available.  The mouse gets stuck and starves to death in about three to five days, before this they often struggle to the point of ripping out their hair and chewing their skin.  (If you do encounter a mouse suffering in a glue trap, remove it!  Cooking or baby oil can help free it.)

Even though mice are small, they have a nervous system just like us.  They suffer and feel pain.  Thankfully, there are humane alternatives to the mousetrap of old.  We found ours at a hardware store for a very reasonable price, check out this website to see or order these. 

To use, just slip a peanut butter cracker into the rectangular box.  When the mouse walks in the shifting of weight causes a door to close.  We found these to be very effective when we had a few mice a couple years ago.  Of course, do not forget to check the trap twice a day so that the mouse does not starve or suffer from fright.  Another humane mouse trap is sold by many retailers and looks like a little house.   The cheapest I found it is at Planet Natural for $11.00.  Remember, these are reusable!

Another option is to adopt a cat.  Now, you may be thinking “How humane is it to be eaten by a cat?”  That’s a good question - let me explain.  The idea is that the presence of a cat will cause the mice to seek another living arrangement.  When we moved into our new apartment, we had some mice living behind our stove.  The humane traps worked, but more mice kept taking their place.  Wally is a great cat, but he has bad eyes and never really was a threat to the mice.  When we adopted Tito, he would steak out their stove hide-out.  We haven’t seen a mouse since.