So do I have mice? No. But I did. So why don't I now? Got rid of them.
How is an interesting story. When I'd had a few sightings I sent away for a non-lethal mousetrap. It was an Amazon order, and I never buy anything from them, so you can see how desperate I was. But I screwed up loading the thing, so it seems a mouse was able to sneak in, lick the peanut butter off the cracker, and skedaddle without being trapped.
So I followed the instructions more carefully, but still didn't catch anything. But by that point there was nothing to catch, I think? I got rid of some candy I'd foolishly left out wrapped only in its foil packaging, and cleaned some stuff out of the closets. With its food sources and hiding places gone, there was no point hanging around.
Mice are very good at adapting and hiding, suited well for survival that way. Their trouble, outside of natural predators like owls, arises when they come into contact with humans. Except for people who keep them as pets, no one wants them around. Well then there are people who keep snakes as pets, but that's not really better for the mice.
In Dougal Dixon's After Man he surveys speculative species that arise when we go extinct. A lot of niches are filled by rodents. Some mice get bigger and take the place of other herbivores. Predator rats actually evolve to take on predator functions, i.e. wolves and bears. This is all, again, speculation, and by definition none of us will be around to see what the world is really like if and when humans go extinct. Still, there's a certain logic to it.
How is an interesting story. When I'd had a few sightings I sent away for a non-lethal mousetrap. It was an Amazon order, and I never buy anything from them, so you can see how desperate I was. But I screwed up loading the thing, so it seems a mouse was able to sneak in, lick the peanut butter off the cracker, and skedaddle without being trapped.
So I followed the instructions more carefully, but still didn't catch anything. But by that point there was nothing to catch, I think? I got rid of some candy I'd foolishly left out wrapped only in its foil packaging, and cleaned some stuff out of the closets. With its food sources and hiding places gone, there was no point hanging around.
Mice are very good at adapting and hiding, suited well for survival that way. Their trouble, outside of natural predators like owls, arises when they come into contact with humans. Except for people who keep them as pets, no one wants them around. Well then there are people who keep snakes as pets, but that's not really better for the mice.
In Dougal Dixon's After Man he surveys speculative species that arise when we go extinct. A lot of niches are filled by rodents. Some mice get bigger and take the place of other herbivores. Predator rats actually evolve to take on predator functions, i.e. wolves and bears. This is all, again, speculation, and by definition none of us will be around to see what the world is really like if and when humans go extinct. Still, there's a certain logic to it.
2 comments:
Insects are also good at adapting - at least those ones who aren't being eradicated by the overapplication of insecticides to every crop imaginable. Bees and butterflies aren't the only ones affected, but the ones that inhabit the spaces where we live can be very resilient. The first apartment we had in Portland turned out to have some severe wood rot that wasn't noticeable at first and part of that meant that ants became a serious issue. We got rid of them by putting almost all our food in the fridge and packing the rest in sealed containers. The wars against the roaches in our Montreal loft were constant, never won by either side, but we did manage to leave them behind when we all moved to Vancouver.
The Douglas Dixon book you mention having read reminds me of an aricle the Archdruid wrote a few years ago about ecological change in distant time. He too imagined creatures we know today changing in ways we can barely conceive of. My favorite was him describing a race evolved from crows visiting the moon in some faraway epoch and wondering what race could have visited there and when. Perhaps they were aliens? True enough from their point of view.
Anyway, this was a good story and I'm glad you were successful in convincing the little beasts to look elsewhere for their sustenance.
Insects mutate so often that in some ways you can be dealing with a whole new species after a few years. Doesn't help them conquer every environmental challenge, obviously, as some of the die-offs show. But yeah, as long as they can get their mandibles on some kind of food the urban ones will be all right. Guess it's a good thing for all of us that the roaches in Montreal weren't able to declare a full victory. Hate to think what their surrender demands would have been like. :)
Because my mind tends to go off on weird tangents when I have time on my hands, I've wondered about evolution like that. Suppose a tool-making species along the lines of us evolved from crows (a good candidate given the complexity of their brains) or bats, but as part of that they lost the ability to fly on their own. Would they be aware of that, and how would they react if so? Could inform things like their approach to space exploration.
Thank you. I'm glad I was able to deal with it pretty much on my own this time. Got at least some sense of accomplishment from it.
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