Unless, like ours, they bring the rats and mice in alive at night and then quickly get bored with them and go out to find another
. We have mouse proofed several things with fine steel mesh including the big gap you always get at the back of the fridge/freezer.
The above is one of a series of pictures I took years ago before I had a video camera. The life and death struggle between a snake and a frog in my bottom pond. Depending on your point of view you might be pleased to learn that the frog escaped with leg intact. ![]()
My gardens are strictly non-killing zones.
What happens outside of my gardens or what happens when Iām not around, Iām OK with, but any creature that can be saved I will save. I will rescue a bluebottle struggling in a bowl of water, or a mouse or bird caught by one of my cats if I can.
Before David Attenborough, who believed in showing carnivore killings up close & personal, there was Armand & Michaela Denis. Armand would rescue wildebeest caught up in fast flowing rivers entangled in fallen riverside trees. I think DA wouldāve let them succumb to nature, and drown.
I was conflicted I must admit, and in any case there was not much I could do without falling in myself, but I was both happy (for the frog) and sad (for the snake who missed his dinner) but would not have wanted to see any other outcome.
I pictured more of the struggle than that, when the frog was swimming around with the snake being dragged around behind, but that is the best picture being as it is, the final one just before the frog broke free.
BTW, not sure how long snakes live, but could that one be the grandpa, or great grandpa, of Hissing Sid who I swim with now in the much bigger and deeper top pond.
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Im in the same boat - canāt tell you how many wasps and flies I have capture inside the house and let out.
I get terribly sad when I see a dead bat, mouse, bird and as much as try an talk the cats out of killing, they simply just this I need to eat more.
Iām glad Froggie lived to croak another day, but croaking has 2 meanings, I think. I hope for the non-deadly version.
Snaky, a reptile, is able to go without food if necessary for weeks or months.
I was going to say he needs to get hopping if he (or she?) wanted to avoid being lunch ![]()
Obviously species-dependent, but they can live 20+ years as my brother found recently, when the snake they had been looking after for their son when he went to uni finally died.
This seems the right approach - to not interfere.
Or croakingā¦
Thatās even worse than mine ![]()
I disagree. There are plenty of examples of ordinary folk helping, for example, elk floundering, trapped in the middle of frozen rivers, out of human compassion. The same compassion I have to rescue a fly from a bowl of water.
I agree to a point, as in my snake/frog incident, but it is one thing to rescue an animal in distress and another to interfere against another animal doing what comes naturally.
This is the main reason why I am not a Christian, or any other religeous adherent. I cannot believe that a so called just and compassionate creator, as he/she/it is reported to be, would design creatures not only to kill each other and eat them but not only that, to do it in the most cruel fashion possible in some cases.
Iām not advocating rescuing wild animal prey from the jaws of wild predators. Or a small deer from the embrace of a python ā which I have seen rescued and released unhurt (the python as well) ā an example of human compassion. The python wonāt go hungry, as I said before, a reptile can go without food for weeks or months.
And rescuing a few elk or wildebeest isnāt going to upset the balance of nature. We as a species have decimated wildlife so a few rescues can only help.
From the jaws of one of my cats, yes, which Iāve done and managed to in time and released either a mouse, bird, or a lizard, unhurt. Out of natural compassion.
Religion or any other form of human reasoning doesnāt come into it for me.
Itās curious that I will let flies and wasps out, pick up spiders and defenestrate them from my home, yet in a natural situation I would probably not interfere.
Thereās a derelict barn opposite my house no doubt full of flies, spiders and webs all of which I leave alone, not my territory. I donāt think anyone goes looking for wildlife to rescue.
Come to that there are spiders all around my house which I leave alone until their webs become conspicuous, at which point I sweep them away, leaving the spiders to repair their webs!
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Spiders eat all sorts of much more undesirable stuff. Spiders are good in a house, within reason although perhaps not all types. Did you know their webs, or at least the substance theyāre made of, has been used for wound dressings ?
Sometimes Iāll note a web and vaguely think.. that needs to go⦠then I wonāt be able to find it again
all depends on how/if the sunlight hits it.


