There was a period of several months when we would find evidence of mice in our house and once even saw one scurrying across the floor in the kitchen. Our home is in the DC suburbs of Maryland, and the creatures were apparently making their way into the house via the attached garage.
Our cats, Ben and Jerry, occasionally caught one, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps if we had held back on the boys’ grub, they would have been better mousers. But they usually could not be bothered.
So, it was left up to us humans to handle the problem. We weren’t interested in the old fashioned, spring-loaded mouse traps that killed very quickly. We also were not interested in using glue sticks that ensured a grueling death for the animal. In fact, we didn’t want to kill the mice at all. We just wanted them out of the house. Thus, we found our way to the balanced traps into which a piece of cheese or smear of peanut butter would be placed. The mouse would enter, the trap would teeter a bit and the door would come down behind the unsuspecting rodent.
This was a very effective manner in which to capture mice in our garage without killing them. The issue became what to do with the mouse once you had it in the trap. At first, one of us would just take the trap down to the end of our block where there is a creek and release the creature there. They usually came out of the trap somewhat dazed and wet (you can guess the source of the wetness). They would stand still for a second or two, then happily scamper away to the cover of leaves, tree roots, etc.
After a few weeks, and constant captures of mice in our garage, we came to the conclusion that the mice we were taking to the creek, just a couple of hundred feet away, were making their way back to our garage. They were repeat offenders who had not been rehabilitated through their previous experience.
That’s when we started taking them for a ride before dumping them. (Writing that makes us sound like the Good Fellas of Bowie, Maryland.) We would put the full trap inside a small Amazon box and close it up for the short journey to the release point – usually an area of woods a few miles from our home. The results were better, and the flow of captures diminished to a trickle.
One morning, Barbara had mouse dumping duty, and she didn’t have time to make a trip to the woods. So, she went to an area of trees near the high school and the public library. She went through the normal routine of unpacking the box, then opening the end of the trap and shaking the mouse out onto the grass. As usual, the mouse took a few seconds to grasp that he was out of confinement.
He then took off gleefully sprinting (at mouse speed), as if to shout, “I’m free! I’m free!”
At that very moment, a large hawk swooped down out of nowhere right in front of a startled Barbara and grabbed the galloping mouse in its talons, then flew away in one athletic move.
Barbara was flabbergasted and astonished, disbelieving what she had just witnessed. It was the circle of life played out just feet in front of her. And it was a cautionary lesson for sure. Just because everything seems to be turning in the right direction, you always must be aware of trouble lurking ahead – or overhead as the case may be.