I recently wrote about our new furry pet "Georgie", a forest mouse that came to visit and move in with us. Well I am happy to say we finally caught the dude!
You see the owner of the house we are housesitting has a live trap, a cage that automatically locks when the animal triggers the hook on the bait. So for days I tried to make it work but Georgie was always too smart - getting stuff off the hook without triggering the trap. I put nuts inside the cage in the hopes he would wiggle around in there to trigger it - nope. He just got away with the nuts. Forest mice are "very smart", as @trayan put it ;)
So in the end I drilled a hole into a walnut and put that on the metal hook wire, twisting the wire around the nut. This way Georgie was forced to wiggle the nut until the trap would finally trigger. I was counting on his walnut greed - and it worked!
Georgie seemed kinda scared of course when he realized he couldn't get out, so we took the trap outside trying to avoid "fear-droppings" inside the house.
We talked to him in a calm voice and let him know we'll just be getting him back to the forest, reassuring him that all this talk about putting him on the grill was just for giggles.
And so we did, walking up through the valley to the other side in the hills and opening the trap so he could rush into the forest. And so it was, he was gone in a second. We dropped some farewell walnuts where we freed him but I am not sure he ever came back to get them.
We would really enjoy having him as a pet but since he leaves his droppings everywhere we are kinda forced to throw him out.
Anyway, Georgie, it was nice having you, now stay in the forest or learn some toilet training! We love ya but stay away from this house ;)
