The first time I saw a shrew was in Sweden in 1973 or 1974. We took a train from Stockholm to the seaside. While walking around a park, I saw some movement in the grass. It was a shrew, the smallest mammal I'd ever seen. It went about its business completely unaware of this giant standing over it.
I haven't seen a shrew since, until yesterday. I found one in a mousetrap in one of our outbuildings in Brimson. It came in from a little hole in the back of the shed, walked across the trap, and that was that. I dumped the shrew next to a mouse that no scavenger had found yet; it was about the quarter of the size of the mouse.
What I use is "The Better Mousetrapwolves, mice, shrews, hunting, trapping, season, deer, endangered species, trespassing", a reusable trap that the mouse simply walks across. The idea is that you place the trap along a wall or other vertical object, the mouse uses it whiskers to navigate, and just thinks the trap is another object to climb over. When a mouse has been caught, open the trap without touching the mouse, and throw it in the woods.
OK, why am I killing these cute little critters? Because they gnaw on anything paper and build nests in nooks and crannies. OK, you say, why not put any paper or cardboard boxes up on a shelf? Hah, mice are climbers. Two of our outbuildings have floors that are two mouse lengths above the ground, and the mice just climb up the vertical surface.
The hard part is that these traps are not always immediately lethal. Sometimes a mouse gets only a leg caught. I won't go into any more details on this, but I'm not happy that things were not immediate.
So, what does this have to do with wolves?
Wolves have been removed from the endangered species list and states may now set wolf seasons. Minnesota had done so with much controversy, with the usual suspects taking the usual sides.
An aside: one letter writer complained that if people didn't kill wolves, the wolves would be out of control and eat all the deer. He ignored that at a certain point there would be too few deer to feed all the wolves, then the wolves would start to starve and the deer population would increase. This has been going on for centuries. Maybe we should kill automobiles because they kill more deer than wolves do.
I have nothing against hunting deer and such; to me hunting is a very expensive and time-
consuming way to get meat. And I can enjoy the outdoors where the only shooting I do is with a camera. What I don't like is that in Minnesota land-owners have to post "No trespassing" signs to legally keep hunters off. This can be a time-consuming task including to be sure no "path" is left unmarked. Even then, we've had bird hunters shoot down our driveway with a plainly visible "no trespassing" sign and with a bright red pickup truck in plain sight!
What I also don't like is that I have to wear orange during hunting season to protect myself.
Now Minnesota has set a wolf season that not only coincides with deer season, but the state has also set a wolf season that goes into January. How long do I have to wear orange on my own property?
Additionally, trapping of wolves is allowed. What happens if some trapper decides that one of my paths is an ideal place to place a trap. I do know that wolves use our property, both from the scat and one kill that we saw. It's bad enough I have to watch that I won't stumble on a rock, but do I have to be on the lookout for traps also?
Consider what I didn't tell you about trapped mice; the same applies to wolves. The mice are going where they are not supposed to be. The wolves are going where they've been going for centuries.
