Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
It's fairy tale because you are arbitrarily according the mouse a status that you do not accord to spiders, houseflies or the germs down your toilet, assuming you clean your toilet with bleach or similar.
The mouse is fluffy and cute and looks like the ones you see in the pet shop. It tugs at your heart strings and you react to it on that basis.
The farmer who needs to keep his yard free of rats, on the other hand, does not have the luxury of trapping them in a little perspex box and driving them, by the dozen, out into the fields to let them go. The farmer knows that they, or their descendants, will soon re-infest his farm, or one of his neighbours farms, and that killing them with lethal trapping mechanisms - or, more likely, poison - is the only practical solution to the problem. Neither of these techniques is guaranteed to be instantaneous or pain-free for the animal. In fact, I've camped close to a farm yard and listened to rats squealing after eating warfarin, so I can say for certain it's not pain-free.
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You are being a little patronising there, Chris.
Rats are a real problem for farmers and yes it would be totally impractical to catch are release each one remotely.
I think there needs to be more research in to better ways of dealing with such infestations.
I don't personally have the answer to that, but riding on horse-back with hounds would do no good
