Eeek!

My 2-week rotation in integrated pest management (IPM) doesn't start until Tuesday, but this past week presented an informal introduction to some of the pests I will take part in managing.  Due to the rain, we spent much of last week cleaning and organizing in and around the barn.  While cleaning in the barn, I picked up a 5-gallon bucket and was surprised to see movement inside.  Running in circles at the bottom of the nearly empty bucket of seeds, trying futilely to escape, was a cute little field mouse.  It quickly realized it could not escape and instead froze, perhaps thinking it hadn't yet been seen.



Field mouse

No such luck.  We had the little mouse cornered, and knew that we should kill it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I wondered, "How do you go about killing a mouse in a bucket, anyway?  Put a trap in the bucket?  Step on it?"  I don't have a problem trapping mice, probably because the trap itself does the dirty work--you don't even have to be there to watch.  But stepping on a mouse, feeling it crunch under my foot?  No way--I couldn't do it.  Wouldn't it be fine to just let it go outside the barn?

My coworker felt similarly, so we took mercy on the critter and let it go outside the barn.  Unfortunately, once free, he raced right back into the barn!  Didn't we feel stupid!  The expression "No good deed goes unpunished" comes to mind.  About an hour later, we spotted the mouse again, this time in the presence of our boss.  "You have to kill it!," he directed us without a moment's hesitation or indication of mercy, shovel in hand.  The little mouse was quick, though, and found another hiding place, living to see another day.  The next day, someone bought mouse traps at Home Depot, so his pardon is likely short-lived.

My next IPM encounter scared the sh*# out of me.  Yesterday morning, I was working in a team of apprentices and youth, clearing away scrap metal and wood from behind the barn.  I bent over and reached out to pick up a piece of metal when I saw movement, then a brown pattern, a diamond-shaped head, and a rattle.  "Aaaa!  Rattlesnake!," I screamed, jumping back from the snake.  My hand had been probably only a foot away from the snake before I saw it--way too close for comfort.  The snake was partially coiled, so I couldn't tell its full length, but I guessed a little less than 3 feet.  Having been instructed during orientation to alert a supervisor to rattlesnake sightings, we did as instructed, quickly fetching our boss to deal with the snake.  Typically, snakes are pardoned and simply escorted off the property.  This snake, however, was not shown mercy, given its location and possibility of return to care for unknown eggs or babies left behind.  This killing didn't bother me, perhaps because the rattlesnake was clearly dangerous, and perhaps because I didn't have to do the killing myself.  I don't know for sure, but had the shovel been handed to me, the finder of the snake and the one most in danger of being bit, I think I wouldn't have been too disturbed by killing it.

This looks pretty similar to the snake I found.

These are my conflicted thoughts as I embark upon my IPM rotation.  I don't take being responsible for the death of sentient beings lightly.  Gophers will be my primary targets over the next couple of weeks.  Of course, they're cute and furry, much like the mouse I couldn't bring myself to kill.  But they are also killed by trapping, so I won't actually be doing the killing myself.  Or is that just a rationalization?  If not a murderer, as the trap setter, aren't I at least an accomplice to murder?  Does the intent, to protect vegetables being grown to feed humans, justify the killing of mammalian pests?  As you can see, I have way more answers than questions at this point in time.  Hopefully, the answers make themselves apparent over the next 2 weeks.  Stay tuned.