A Better imouse Trap

摘要

One day, when I was about 11 years old, I was looking out our window into the backyard when I saw something running up to my dog's house, and then run back to the fence whereour neighbor's firewood was stacked. A few minutes later I saw it again and realized that I was watching a rat going up to my dog's food bowl, taking a piece of food and running back with it to the safety of the wood pile. To say I was excited would be an understatement; I had just gotten two No. 1 size long spring foothold traps, and now I had something that needed trapping!After an "extensive inspection" I found the spots where the rat had been crossing under the fence, and that is where I set my two traps. After watching the rat run back and forth for the next hour without being caught I realized that it was running overthe traps but not setting them off. (Hence, my first lesson on foothold traps needing proper pan tension for the target animal.) After some minor trap adjustments I soon captured not one, but two rats that measured 19 and 21VS inches long, respectively,from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail. Unfortunately, after several additional days of trapping I finally realized that there were only two rats living in the wood pile! (And that ended with my secondlesson: A need to evaluate the population of the target animal(s) that are present.)