Bad exterminator alert - Do not call! - Extermination Envirotek - Appelez jamais! Mauvais exterminateur!

I had a very "enlightening" conversation with the owner/operator in Montreal, who refused to give his name. I asked him about how he exterminates rats and mice, and he said "we kill them every day." I told him I had learned a good exterminator first finds ways to get them out of the building, and then find a way to exclude them from the building, saving killing them for last. (This information is widely available in both books and on the internet when you do your research for pest extermination. Please start here.) He adamantly refused. He says they only kill them. I guess finding ways to prevent them from coming in, making sure they have a chance to get out, and treating them humanely, would be bad for business.

He was also extraordinarily rude during the whole exchange. Sounds like a good exterminator to you?

It also happens to advertise its "service" with a picture of a domesticated rat in its publicity.

Missing Mousie has safely returned

Mousie and her rat-dad!

Mousie the rat went missing on her flight from Vancouver to Montreal on July 3rd. After 8 days of escalating searches, she was humanely trapped at Toronto Pearson, and returned to her family in Montreal. Congratulations, Mousie and family!


We came to learn all about how to fly with rodents because of Mousie. Mousie’s guardians contacted our list (Canada Rat Adoption) because they wanted to find a new home for her on their return to Montreal from Vancouver, where they had lived for 3 years. Everyone on the list jumped in and gave them advice on how to travel with Mousie so that she, an old lady, could continue her retirement with them. Some of the advice, however, was disregarded. You know what’s coming: Mousie the rat went missing on her flight from Vancouver to Montreal on July 3rd. Here are the details.

Mousie back at home

Mousie’s guardians did take the precaution of taking the container they bought for Mousie to the airport in advance to check if it was good enough for travel, and the counter agent did not check regulations - she said yes. On the day of travel the counter agents also did not check the mistake, and assuming Mousie would be more closely monitored, her guardians did not tape the lid down on container. When the staff at the Air Canada counter accepted Mousie’s transport container, her owners thought all would be well. Everyone was mistaken. Mousie was sent in an incorrect carrier, and true to Murphy’s Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong), it broke open during the flight.


Because they travelled on an overnight, connecting flight (advice given: take direct flights only, or check out and check in your pet at the stopover), Mousie hopped off the plan at the connecting airport. But we didn’t know that, so the search had to be conducted at Vancouver (where she was confirmed boarded), Toronto (no documentation), and Montreal (no pet).
After 8 days of escalating searches in Toronto and Montreal, as well as TWO infrared searches of the plane she had been on (one in Calgary, one elsewhere; very expensive for Air Canada but necessary for safety, as rodents and rabbits chew cables), Mousie was finally found in a humane trap at Toronto Pearson.The Wildlife Service for the Airport Authority then drove Mousie to met a volunteer, who positively identified her, took her home and the next day to a vet. She was seen by Dr. Munn in Scarborough, and although she was dehydrated and had some scrapes on her fingers and tail, she was fine.

The sleeve-hammock treatment

After Mousie had her vet check-up, she got to fly back in one of these special rodent-shipping boxes, right on the flight deck (cockpit) of an Air Canada Cargo jet. I drove her guardians to Cargo to pick her up, and I interviewed Rob Little, Live Cargo animal handler, about the process of shipping live animals. We sent the reunion photos to Silverman helps and to the list serve in order to spread the good news.


Update:
This story was being investigated by CityPulse News, Silverman Helps, when Mousie was found, and so Craig Silverman went with the camera crew to see Mousie at Dr. Munn’s. “You are a very lucky rat!” he told her. This story was aired on July 19. The video was here. I would love to have a copy.


There have been changes in Air Canada’s policies since the Mousie incident. They disallowed pets as carry-on - not necessarily the safest policy, as Mousie and the plane would have been better off under her guardians’ supervision. For a period afterward, they also disallowed pets as extra baggage on passenger flights, insisting that Live Cargo was used. Although my research into this says that it is the more prudent course, animal welfare societies took Air Canada to court and the rule was struck down, in that passengers shouldn’t have onerous policies in place that prevent them from travelling with their pets.

A nice mouse rescue story

Yesterday my boyfriend went to use the ATM, and came out saying "there a little wild mouse running around in there." So we went home, I got the humane trap and baited it, and went back. That little mouse, though, is not like our Mus musculus mice. It was far too clever for that trap. It was cowering under a tax guide that someone had propped up in the corner to cover it. I chased and chased and chased it, aided first by a girl in rollerblades (who eventually took them off), an old man, a slightly younger woman with an umbrella, then two of four young ne'er-do-wells, who, in their stoned kind of way, were trying to do well, while the other two stayed outside and watched the amazing technicolor mouse show. I finally looked one in the eye (a hard thing to do when you're trying to keep your eye on a mouse!) and said "Please go to the gas station or the restaurant next door and get a brown paper bag." He offered newspaper but that's not much use, but he came back quickly with the bag. Then the two of us had it in the corner under a table, and he gave it a little scare so it darted right into the bag. It, I should say him. I think it's a he.
He looked like a spiny mouse, and was moving not as fast as I expected a wild mouse to move. He had huge ears and huge eyes, a brown back and a white belly. Like this! So I wondered if he really was wild or a domestic mouse released at a bank. I put him in a cage covered with a towel in my apartment entryway, with water, food, a tube, bedding, and his bag, and left him there overnight.
In the morning a friend who has spiny mice came by, and she said he wasn't a spiny - so I for sure had to find a place to release him. He does not look like a city mouse, as I said, so where could he have come from? Then I thought: through a very complicated intersection just past the gas station, there's Atwater Market, where farmers come and sell their produce to booming business. He may have come in in a bushel of beans, and navigated his way to the bank lobby quite by luck.
This afternoon I took him for a drive down to Verdun, looking for a suitable park, and finally went to the extensive grounds of the Douglas Hospital - a huge area with scattered psych wards and living and working buildings. There was a squishy low-land pool of water that will likely dry up in the summer, with a few Canada geese and mallards whiling away the spring days (my dog Daisy wanted to live up to her nickname "Duck" and join them), and further on, a small woods and bare lot, and beyond that about 100-200 meters, the houses began again. I found a good place, lifted the towel off the cage, and the poor little guy was clinging to the bars looking out. I opened up the cage, and let him go. He ran off and quite quickly disappeared into the surroundings.

Cruelty at the hands of "protesting" students

On February 2, 103 mice were released into the offices of Jean Charest (premier) and Moniuqe Gagnon-Tremblay (deputy premier) by student activists.

89 or so mice were captured by building maintenance personel or contractors (reported to be exterminators in the news) and taken to the SPA de l'Estrie.

There, they were evaluated as injured, potentially pregnant, unadoptable. They were euthanized.

The story was reported by the CBC on February 3. The report incorrectly stated that "exterminators were called in."

No further mention in the media occurred. No one was given the opportunity to respond to this cruelty with kindness.

At my rodent rescue (Small Victories Rodent Rescue - Refuge pour rongeurs Petites Victoires), I would have taken as many as I could. I have easy access to cages; we might have been able to foster and adopt them out. I am not the only one, I am sure, who is able to make a little room for cases like this.

I have left a voice mail to the general manager of the SPA de l'Estrie and am awaiting a response. Should more cases like this result, I want them to be aware that they are not isolated in acting on behalf of animals in emergency, and that they need to reach out to animal networks and the general community before making a hasty decision. [Update: We have since established a resource link with the SPA and have rescued several of their small animals.]

The office of the premier and deputy premier have my telephone number should it happen to them again; hopefully they will be consulted and give my number out should it happen to anyone else in their cabinet.

And it looks to potentially happen again (view the CBC article), even worse: This act was clearly if not officially instigated by the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (Quebec's students' federation). Jonathan Plamondon, its vice-president, gave the following interview to the McGill Tribune about the Feb. 1 organized protests:

"'We will not block anything, we will not break anything, but we want to show the government that we're still hurt by the cut,'
…

According to Plamondon, the [protest] event at the bridge will be followed by a series of 'bigger and more aggressive' actions until the province announces its budget in March. FECQ hope that more drastic actions will influence the government to reinvest the money.

'It's clear that civil disobedience is in the plan, and it's clear it's no longer a time for symbolic actions,' he said."

I will be writing letters to the student newspapers at Université de Sherbrooke and also to Bishops University, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec, Anima-Quebec, and, I think, the minister of agriculture because that's the department responsible for all animal welfare.

A corresponding effort, I believe, is in order to tell the Quebec government that cruelty to animals, when used in political actions, takes on terrorist overtones -- such as the Saguenay farmers' protest, which involved the killing of a cow and her calf to prompt increased funding for combatting the BSE beef ban -- and should not net any positive results for these radicals, but further sanctions instead.

I invite you all to help me, because the mice need all the help they can get. Addresses for your letters, phone calls, and e-mails are below.
Respectful communication helps our cause, and counters the disrespect that these "protestors" have shown. Let the small lives of these mice not be in vain, and benefit their own kind.

Update February 7: The threat to carry out the same actions was realized. The Montreal SPCA received scores of mice and placed them with another rescue group on Saturday, February 5.
To condemn the cruelty perpetrated by student activists, write these organizations, who instigated the "strike":

Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ)
Attn: Jonathan Plamondon
http://www.fecq.org/
3449 Saint-Denis, Suite 1
Montréal (Québec) H2X 3L1
Tel 514.396.3320
Fax 514.396.3329

Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec
http://www.feuq.qc.ca/
210 Ste-Catherine est, bureau 3000
Montreal, QC, H2X 1L1
feuq@feuq.qc.ca

Regarding prevention and enforcement of animal cruelty laws:
*Your local police force and animal shelter*

ANIMA Québec
http://www.animaquebec.com/
1965, rue St-Michel
Sillery (Québec) G1S 1J7
Téléphone : (418) 688-1771
Sans frais : 1 866-321-1771
Télécopieur : (418) 688-1770
Courriel : info@animaquebec.com

Quebec Agriculture Parliamentary Commission - capa@assnat.qc.ca
Françoise Gauthier

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food /
Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation
ministre.mapaq@agr.gouv.qc.ca
200-A, chemin Sainte-Foy
12e étage
Québec (Québec) G1R 4X6
Téléphone : (418) 380-2525
Télécopieur : (418) 380-2184