So you think you have a mouse problem?

One of the things that most people who have never worked in animal care don’t realize is that various rodents and insects can quickly become the bane of any animal caregiver’s existence. As I was arriving at BF, the Lodges had just done battle with the mice that insist on inhabiting the New Friends building (where our kitchen is located). They set out live traps, cleaned out closets, and used aerosol foam insulation to plug the access holes. Mice are a constant problem all throughout the sanctuary; no matter how hard you try, the volume of food that we deal with on a daily basis makes it virtually impossible to stop attracting mice. We keep things clean, but little pieces of kibble seem to find their way into the most unlikely of places and then the mice find them. I wouldn’t even have a problem with the mice if it weren’t for the smell of their waste and the numerous diseases that they carry, which around here includes the Hantavirus - a disease in which you have flu-like symptoms in the extreme and then your lungs fill with fluid and you can die if it isn‘t caught soon enough. It is the things that come with the mice that I don’t like, it is not the mice themselves.
Now, many of you may be wondering why we don’t just set out mouse traps or poison and kill the little buggers, but you must remember, BF is based on the ideology that all living creatures deserve respect and a place in the world (also, poison should never be used because it kills so indiscriminately and effects the entire food chain). We can’t go around saving the cute and cuddly ones and kill the mice and insects that make our work a little harder, so we put out live traps. Monday through Friday, Hal, “The Mouse Man”, sets the traps and goes around daily to check them. He collects up all the mice that get trapped into a five gallon bucket (with a lid) and drives them several miles away from the sanctuary and releases them. He has been doing this for about two years now, averaging anywhere from twelve to thirty mice each day; he releases them into several designated areas, which have now grown into established colonies where the mice are thriving in the wild.
So, back to the original point of this story, after all the work that was done at New Friends several months ago to stop the mice from inhabiting our side of the building, they are now back in full force. For weeks now, we have been spotting them popping out from one closet door and skittering under another or zipping out from a hole in the wall and into a cardboard box full of toys. Sometimes we would open the closet door and one would dive down into a large plastic tub of toys or go hopping across the rims of buckets and shoot into a hole in the wall. We could smell them every time we opened the closet door and they weren’t finding their way into the mouse trap. The closet just needed to be cleaned out and the tub of toys removed and washed because that was the obvious source of much of the odor. When I got to work on Monday, it was very cold and snowy and so I decided I would take advantage of the bad weather to tackle cleaning out the closet before morning feedings began. I dragged everything out, buckets, rubber boots, jugs of cleaners, anything on the floor of the closet came out, including the three foot tub of toys that was the source of much of the smell. I got two garbage bags, one for the plush and fabric toys and one for the tennis balls, they would go down to the laundry for a thorough cleaning, the plastic and rubber toys were tossed into the sink and anything too smelly or gnawed up went to the trash can. About half way down, I let out a startled expletive as I picked up a toy and a mouse went scurrying deeper into the bin. As I continued to pull out the toys, I became more and more cautious because I didn’t want to inadvertently pick up a squirming mouse for I knew that, while I don’t mind mice, I would in all likelihood be so startled that I would screech like a little girl and fling it across the room - probably onto the back of Keeley’s head or into her sink, leading to much more chaos and girly screeching. Over the following minutes the air was filled with many more startled outbursts of swearing and groaning as I continued to spot the mouse. And then, as I moved a toy, it became clear that there were two mice in the bin, and then a moment later I spotted a third. Once I got down to the final layer of toys, it was clear that an entire, multi-generational mouse family was living in the tub. Megan arrived and decided I was moving too slowly removing the toys and went to work grabbing out the rest of the toys in a matter of seconds as Keeley, Andrea, and I stood slack-jawed at the sight before us. They were hopping and skittering around the bottom of the tub, it was like watching popcorn pop and we were all discussing the what to do with the mice. Somebody suggested just dumping the tub outside, but in order to successfully stop the mice from returning, the general rule is two miles, so just taking them out back and dumping the tub would certainly mean they would be back inside before lunch. Megan offered to put them in her car and drive it across the street and let them go there, but to me that seemed like just dumping the problem off on the caregivers over there. And then it occurred to us, we have a Mouse Man, he is paid to manage the mouse problem and relocate the mice, so why not just call Hal and have him come get our tub of mice and add them to his colonies. All Hal knew when he arrived was that we had “a bucket of mice”, so as he walked up to the building, I picked up the bucket and walked it out to the door for him and set it at his feet. “Wow, you really do have a bucket of mice!”
“Yup, we counted - there’s fourteen!” That’s right, fourteen live mice. Fourteen mice all trying to figure out how to get out of the tub. We slapped a lid on the tub and Hal took the mice to be released at one of the colonies he has established over the last two years. So the next time you spot a mouse running through your basement, just picture a big white tub of fourteen mice and it might make you feel a little bit better - then again,