Mice

I seem to get everything wrong.

We have mice again!

I guess the carpets which are made up of 100% chocolate, despite being swept by a Dyson every day, were just too tempting for them.

Then there’s been the wet August weather enough to make any rodent seek warmth and shelter. I’ve read that they can squeeze through tiny gaps in order to get into a house. Probably in our case they just walked in through the open back door!

My old humane mouse trap had become even more humane. It refused to close even gently on any tiny visitor, so I had to buy a new one.

The pet shop owner told me that people usually came to him to buy poison for their mice infestations. I was horrified.

My new trap has caught three mice.

The last was a very young mouse. I drove it to the fields where I’ve released others over the years. I’ve read on the Internet apocryphal tales of released mice finding their way back home again and I hoped that mine would not.

In the far distance there was a hawk hovering over a grassy mound. I hoped my previous releasees had become skilled at hiding from it.

For the hawk to be there at all the mouse population must be doing quite well, I reasoned.

I released the young mouse and immediately felt so sorry for it. It was confused to find itself running along a path and not alongside the familiar skirting board that it knew so well. I knew its chances of survival were not good, but at least it did have a chance. Eventually, it bounded into the long grass and out of sight; and I went home to wash, dry and reset the trap.

Last night a beautiful mouse was caught. This one stole my heart. It was so tiny. It rested its paws on the plastic bar inside the trap in a most appealing way. I wondered about keeping it. We still have two empty hamster cages. It would have made an adorable pet.

I thought about creating a rodent prison until all its siblings were also captives. I then imagined releasing them all at the same time. A spectacle of bounding skipping bodies scurrying off in all directions; but then I remembered what the pet shop man had said about wild mice carrying diseases, and I changed my mind.

It was too late to take the mouse to the fields, so instead I soaked a Chocolatey Square in water and popped it into the trap; so at least it had food, water and shelter for the night; and I went to bed.

In the morning under a lowering cloudy sky I took this tiny baby mouse to the fields. I looked for the hawk but it was not in sight. A group of about four teenage girls on their way to school were dawdling along the path. I waited for them to pass me by before I released the tiny mouse.

It didn’t want to leave the trap despite the flap being left wide open. I gently tapped on the plastic closest to it with my car keys and gingerly it began to step out into its new world.

Once free it began to run, but instead of running into the long grass it ran straight ahead along the path, delighting me with its delicate skips and bounds.

It had gone no more than two yards ahead of me when the hawk swooped.

The hawk grabbed the tiny mouse in its claws, flapped its wings briefly and then arched away high into the air.

I could see the mouse dangling pathetically from its claws against the white sky in a dreadful death silhouette. It had no chance.

I realised that the hawk had probably been watching me from the top of some tall trees behind me. It later perched there, right at the top, and I could not watch.

I was amazed that it had not been deterred by the schoolgirls further along the path or by me standing there.

The thought of it watching my every move, its fatal surveillance of my naivety, my humane stupidity; with its cold calculating flight hardwired to catch and kill; was chillingly disturbing. I felt complicit in a murder.

Worse, I admired the bird for its calculating skill and finely executed manoeuvre.

I read on the Internet how releasing a mouse into an unfamiliar field without the support system of a nest, mobile phone and family is unkind and unethical; and how a mouse will be finished off very quickly. They were right but I hadn’t expected the mouse to only have less than ten seconds of survival time.

In dismay I studied the Internet for alternative solutions to my mouse problem. There is poison which offers a gut wrenching painful death; sticky pads where the mouse become stuck and might sadly gnaw its own legs off in its desperation to get away; then there’s a mouse trap hailed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) as being the most humane treatment around. This lauded ‘final solution’ of a trap releases carbon dioxide from a tiny gas canister and kills a mouse in 60 seconds. Apparently this trap was given an award for innovation!

I don’t like the sound of any of the alternatives on offer. Tonight I’ll set my humane trap once more, and when it catches the next mouse I shall once again take it to the fields. I’ll avoid the path and release the mouse directly into the long grass. For me this is the most ethical solution at least I’m giving them a chance to live however slim.

And my last mouse… at least it managed a few skips and jumps, before it flew!