It should be said that when it comes to getting information on humane methods to kill any wild animal that has become a pest will get you a lot of very very strange, weird and some even wonderful answers but in my opinion some of them are not even close to being humane and probably fit more into the cruelty area. Two methods that are commonly recommended by unqualified people usually working in retail outlets that sell these items are, poisons and sticky traps. Poisons have to be cruel because they can take up to three days to actually kill the animal and if you watch poisoned animal it is in obvious pain all the time. Sticky traps just capture the California animal and hold it, unable to move, until it usually dies of dehydration, I don't know about you but that to me does not sound like a very nice way to go.



Some of the weird or should I just say ludicrous and stupid ideas I have read include shooting a San Mateo mouse with a rifle big enough to bring down a moose, the person who proposed this stated that the mouse just exploded when it was shot and he thought that was a good thing, until I asked him who has the biohazard suit to clean up the mess he just made because he has no idea if the animal was carrying a disease or not and when I said to him that mice can carry rabies his expression was priceless.

Another really strange idea is that you catch rats and mice in a specially built trap that then uses the California animals body to make electricity, this was proposed as a high-tech solution to a rat or mouse infestation, it was even proposed building the trap into the leg of a table or piece of furniture so as to make it more appealing to homeowners, the really strange part about it was that it sounds feasible, though the amount of electricity generated by a single mouse is less than a AA battery.

There are all kinds of lethal traps on the market, and all of them kill pretty quickly, you have your basic old-fashioned snap traps for smaller rodents, and your larger squeeze traps for bigger San Mateo rodents, on top of that you have electrical traps that are designed to electrocute the animal when it triggers the trap but of course these traps can be dangerous to non-targets, a child sticking their hand in one of these traps will get a very nasty surprise but because of the size of the child no more then a bit of pain.

Nearly every Humane Society and professional all agree the most humane way to kill any wild California animal is with asphyxiation using CO2 gas, the method is fairly simple, you place the animal, usually still in the trap, inside a large plastic bag, garbage liners are good for this, then in a separate container you mix baking soda and vinegar. Mixing baking soda and vinegar producers CO2, once you have the mixture working seal up the bag and then come back an hour or so later. The CO2 at first only renders the animal unconscious and then over a relatively short period of time kills it.

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