I am stopped on my way through the house by a small grey leaf on the floor. On further inspection it turns out to be a tiny mouse. It seems to have fallen asleep mid crawl. We crouch down to look at it, unsure whether or not it is alive. There is some concerned discussion, a bit of gentle nudging using a plastic straw and finally we realise that it's tiny chest is moving in and out. It is breathing. But it doesn't look very well.
"Maybe it's dying" says M, sadly, "I don't know how we can help it."
"Maybe it's a dormouse" I suggest, because I know about such things from reading Alice in Wonderland. Dormice are quite sleepy - and often found inside teapots.
It isn't until we see another one in a similar condition, staggering ineptly about on its furry feet, with its eyes closed, that we realise the mice are babies. And that the Mother is nowhere to be seen.
In a few minutes, there are three of them. All if them look as though they are not old enough to leave the nest.
"Where's the nest?" I ask. We look. I am acutely aware that this house belongs to S, and that we cannot in all conscience simply allow the mice to stay there and reproduce. If it were our house I am rather minded to simply cohabit with the mouse family and just makes extra effort to cover food, but I know that mice breed very rapidly. And to peacefully house share with an entire mouse warren might be a little impractical. There would be diseases passed both ways, both mice and human housemates could accidentally poison each other, and it might be difficult to walk around without treading on our furry friends. And no one else we know would set foot in the house. So yes. It would be impractical. Even if it was our house.
And it isn't.
Clearly the mice need to relocate. I am hoping we can find the nest and take mother and babies gently out, to make their home anew in the forest.
The trouble is, however hard we look, we can't find the nest. It's a house over the water. There are no spaces under the floor boards and no obvious hide-aways where a nest could be. The Mother is nowhere to be seen.
"I don't think much of her mothering skills" I say crossly, until I hear a tell tale meow from next door. It's possible that these babies have been orphaned, that the nest isn't in the house, it's outside somewhere and they have been driven out of it by hunger. Even so, we doggedly search - much preferring the humane Mouse house move scenario to the inevitable poison S will probably use to ensure the nest doesn't multiply. Finally there is only one place we haven't looked - in the locked cupboard under the stairs. Vaguely aware that we are kidding ourselves, we send a message to S saying that we think the nest might be in there and did she have the key. We offer to take it ourselves if we find it. Then we pick up the baby mice very gently, and encourage them back through the gap in the cupboard door.
"Your best chance of survival", I tell my mouse earnestly, as it clings rather heartbreakingly to my hand, " is to go back to your nest so we can move it for you."
The mouse doesn't understand. It doesn't want to go into the cupboard and when S arrived, waving the dreaded packet of Mouse pellets, there are three confused looking baby mice clustered in the doorway to the cupboard. S does not have the combination to the cupboard padlock, but she trusts in the pellets.
"What will happen to them?" I say tremulously. I am realistic enough to know that the mice will probably not survive anywhere. In the absence of their mother they will probably starve. This is what would befall them even if we managed to carry then out to the jungle. And if their mother was there I don't think they would be out. I am hoping the pellets might offer them at least a quicker, cleaner end than the slow starvation they faced alone.
S tells me that the pellets will make them thirsty so they will run into the sea. I have no idea how euphemistic this description might be.
Seeing our faces S says she is sorry - she shouldn't have told us.
"Just go out" she says, "and I will deal with it "
We walk obediently out onto the deck. M gives me a hug.
"It was inevitable really" he says, "they were already weak."
I know. I know and understand this but I glance back just in time to see S, her hand wrapped in a plastic bag to avoid touching them, scooping up the unresisting babies from the floor. I look away. I know, at least, it will be quick. S, like me, has probably realised that babies this young with their eyes still closed are unlikely to be able to ingest solids. So they won't eat the poison. She will have no interest in cruelty. She is dealing with them as vermin. It will, whatever it is, be swift. But I can't help but notice the difference in her handling of them to ours. We picked them up gently with our hands, talked to them softly and even considered feeding them. When we looked up care of baby mice online we found they would need hand feeding of a special milk concoction designed to mirror mouse milk every few hours day and night. They would need us to stimulate their genitals for them to make them go to the toilet. Also every few hours, day and night.
And we couldn't really take that on. Quite apart from the issue of breeding in the house. Mice raised like that would not cope in the wild.
We open the cupboard in the end and we don't find a nest. The pellets, offensively blue and a sad reminder, remain untouched. A few days later we find one last baby mouse, dead near where we found the others. This one was not lucky enough to have a fast end. They were sentenced to a short and painful life from very early on.
For me, this was a family tragedy. For the vast majority of other people, it was a bit of housework taken care of. I am aware that my hopes of any other outcome were entirely unrealistic. I understand that we can't allow creatures as fast breeding a mice to share our living space.
But who decides which creatures can be carelessly disposed of and which cannot? What is the formula for it? I can't bring myself to hurt any creature - except mosquitoes. These I hunt down actively, kill with a vengeance and actively celebrate over their corpse. I appreciate the reason, at least on the surface, is that the mosquito can do humans a lot of harm. But it doesn't mean to. It just needs the blood. It doesn't know it is carrying dengue fever. It doesn't even know that the anaesthetic it uses reacts with my skin and will cause it to itch.
In the end do we really have the right to take any life? And if not then what do we do with these creatures who, one way or another, will do us harm if we allow them into our living space?
It is very difficult to rid your house of a family of mice humanely and you may sentence them to another kind of death in the process. Ultimately, the most humane action we can take as humans is to ensure that our houses are not attractive enough to those animals we class as pests to settle there in the first place. As our dwellings start to spread out, as our cities begin to eat into the countryside we are intruding on land which has been theirs for centuries. The least we can do is take responsibility for how habitable an environment our homes are for an animal. Seal holes, don't leave food out, invite predators like cats in - this is the most humane suggestion given online. If we will have to get rid of an animal - ultimately to kill it, we should give it fair warning. Providing a lovely warm, food scattered lodging and then screeching and lashing out and committing mass murder when the animals move in is giving mixed messages.
I can't fault S on any of these counts and I think on this occasion the mice wandered in out of desperation rather than because the house was especially habitable. I am talking more generally.
When we get home I will make sure my house is entirely unattractive to those animals I cannot safely live with. Because I don't think I can kill them kindly if they do move in. My very reticence would only prolong their suffering.
And yes this is supposed to be a travel blog. And I am meant to be writing about exciting adventures - about wind surfing and kayaking and trekking and snorkelling.
But I witnessed the end of a family today. Is that really less important?
No comments:
Post a Comment