The end of a battle, the beginning of war...
WARNING: This entry contains violence, death, and animal cruelty. Those with weak constitutions for such things should not continue to read.
I killed my first mouse today. In general I am a lover of life, and try to avoid killing as much as possible. In the past, I have tried to avoid killing insect in my home when they were there just because they didn't know better. Spiders, flies, and such creatures would get safe harbor from me and be taken outside, unless they resist such efforts to the point where they become too much to handle (a spider on my towel in the bathroom as I get out of the shower, or a fly buzzing in my ear when I'm asleep). Other pests, like mosquitos, ants, and anything with more than 12 legs I tend to smash more because other people in my family would freak out if they saw them.
There is also the issue of size...there's only a certain amount of crunch I'm willing to tolerate when crushing something. If an insect is too big, my desire to preserve life is coupled with a certain amount of squeamishness about the ensuing crunch. I have gotten over that on a few occasions though, particularly when it comes to large cockroaches in India that pretend to be my slipper (ask for that story if you haven't heard it).
This mouse from last night, however, was my first mammal kill. We have been having a little bit of a problem with mice running around our apartment, and twice I've been woken up at night because of a mouse rustling around in my room. Most of the time these mice are smart enough to avoid the glue traps and snappy traps we've put around the apartment. Last night things came to a head though - my roommate saw two mice in the kitchen (probably because another roommate left his pan full of hamburger helper crap out all night), and put lots of glue traps down all over the kitchen. I did not actually know about this at the time.
So I walked into the kitchen to dispose of the trash from my room when I noticed there was a glue trap upside down in the middle of the floor, fluttering in the breeze. It took me a second to realize that there was no breeze, and an upside down glue trap would just stick to the floor - there was a mouse underneath it. It was well entangled in the trap, but had managed to writhe its way across half the kitchen floor after falling off the windowsill. I was at a total loss for what to do for a moment - the struggling mouse brought to mind all of my moral and squeamishness considerations. I remembered pep-talking Kristin about killing the mice that got caught in her trap when she lived in Brooklyn, and how I had told her to bang it against something to give it a sharp enough blow to the head to kill it. I decided that I would rather step on this one and break its neck - so that's what I did. I left it under the glue trap, and put just enough pressure so that I could feel its neck snap. It stopped moving quickly after that, and when I flipped the trap over, I could clearly see that the mouse was dead. Fortunately I hadn't squished it hard enough that any of its insides came out.
I have so many problems with this. I took a life that is (arguably) much more complex than any I've taken before. I took it with my foot - which is something that most people will think is weird to worry about, but the feet carry some negative connotations in Bengali/Hindu culture and religion.
Then again, this mouse was eating our food, defacating all over our apartment, potentially spreading disease, and deftly avoiding all attempts to get it to go away. Most of all, this pest is disrupting my happy home. This death was [almost] unavoidable, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to kill the next one to get caught in my apartment. It's man vs. mouse, and while the mice will always win, this man will take as many as he can from the other side.
I killed my first mouse today. In general I am a lover of life, and try to avoid killing as much as possible. In the past, I have tried to avoid killing insect in my home when they were there just because they didn't know better. Spiders, flies, and such creatures would get safe harbor from me and be taken outside, unless they resist such efforts to the point where they become too much to handle (a spider on my towel in the bathroom as I get out of the shower, or a fly buzzing in my ear when I'm asleep). Other pests, like mosquitos, ants, and anything with more than 12 legs I tend to smash more because other people in my family would freak out if they saw them.
There is also the issue of size...there's only a certain amount of crunch I'm willing to tolerate when crushing something. If an insect is too big, my desire to preserve life is coupled with a certain amount of squeamishness about the ensuing crunch. I have gotten over that on a few occasions though, particularly when it comes to large cockroaches in India that pretend to be my slipper (ask for that story if you haven't heard it).
This mouse from last night, however, was my first mammal kill. We have been having a little bit of a problem with mice running around our apartment, and twice I've been woken up at night because of a mouse rustling around in my room. Most of the time these mice are smart enough to avoid the glue traps and snappy traps we've put around the apartment. Last night things came to a head though - my roommate saw two mice in the kitchen (probably because another roommate left his pan full of hamburger helper crap out all night), and put lots of glue traps down all over the kitchen. I did not actually know about this at the time.
So I walked into the kitchen to dispose of the trash from my room when I noticed there was a glue trap upside down in the middle of the floor, fluttering in the breeze. It took me a second to realize that there was no breeze, and an upside down glue trap would just stick to the floor - there was a mouse underneath it. It was well entangled in the trap, but had managed to writhe its way across half the kitchen floor after falling off the windowsill. I was at a total loss for what to do for a moment - the struggling mouse brought to mind all of my moral and squeamishness considerations. I remembered pep-talking Kristin about killing the mice that got caught in her trap when she lived in Brooklyn, and how I had told her to bang it against something to give it a sharp enough blow to the head to kill it. I decided that I would rather step on this one and break its neck - so that's what I did. I left it under the glue trap, and put just enough pressure so that I could feel its neck snap. It stopped moving quickly after that, and when I flipped the trap over, I could clearly see that the mouse was dead. Fortunately I hadn't squished it hard enough that any of its insides came out.
I have so many problems with this. I took a life that is (arguably) much more complex than any I've taken before. I took it with my foot - which is something that most people will think is weird to worry about, but the feet carry some negative connotations in Bengali/Hindu culture and religion.
Then again, this mouse was eating our food, defacating all over our apartment, potentially spreading disease, and deftly avoiding all attempts to get it to go away. Most of all, this pest is disrupting my happy home. This death was [almost] unavoidable, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to kill the next one to get caught in my apartment. It's man vs. mouse, and while the mice will always win, this man will take as many as he can from the other side.