A neighbor’s best friend routinely sets the rhythm for my day. Most mornings Stevie, as in Nicks, swings by my back door in time for coffee. A single low “Ruff,” is her calling card. Lured by wild scents hiding in my backyard shrubs, the dog makes random afternoon appearances, as well. At day’s end, a day-glow collar lights her in the night as she makes her final rounds searching, smelling, prowling for wild prey. But Stevie won’t pounce or kill, ever.Focused on a cupboard under my kitchen sink, Stevie’s head tilted inquisitively and the charming tufts and tendrils of her ears began to quiver. “What is it, Stevie,” I asked. I already knew. A feeling of dread had interrupted our pleasant fall morning. As a north wind scatters fallen, dry leaves and our valley’s temperatures slide into the low 40s by dusk, we are not the only ones seeking warmth and shelter this time of year. Field mice content to thrive outside all summer, now want in.I am partly to blame. The bird feeder hooked to a branch of a nearby crabapple tree is filled with black sunflower seeds that sometimes fall to the ground and attract hungry squirrels and rodents. All efforts to seal gaps, seams and holes around my home have failed. The mouse invasion and subsequent eviction is a seasonal routine.Summers vacationing in the north woods of Wisconsin taught me everything I needed or thought I needed to know about mice. Our “Cabin in the Pines” was home to families of mice for years. They crawled up log walls at bedtime and left rice-size pellets in silverware drawers. Destined for the dump, my dad baited and stoically discarded hundreds of crushed mice in spring-loaded traps.While living with a mouse is totally unacceptable for me, so is killing the poor thing. I can’t do it. A humane eviction is the only option for me and the mouse.Poison, leg-hold traps, and snares kill thousands of wild animals annually. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program poisoned 6,543 animals using M-44 cyanide bombs in 2023. Reported to The Center for Biological Diversity, federal agents killed 375,045 native animals (9,305 gray wolves, 68,562 coyotes, 430 black bears, 235 mountain lions, 469 bobcats, 2,122 red and gray foxes and 24,603 beavers)  the same year.They unintentionally killed 2,484 wild animals, including 658 river otters, 428 turtles and non-targeted wood ducks, great blue herons, wild turkeys and a federally protected golden eagle. Added in are cats and dogs. “It’s hard to even imagine the thousands of coyotes, beavers and other animals who die agonizing deaths from snares, traps or poisons,” according to the director of the center’s carnivore conservation.Clearly, a live trap and relocation was the only way to go. But I learned live-trapping and relocating wild animals can be problematic. If performed between March and August when wild animals bear their young, they may be inadvertently separated,  leave the orphans to die. The Humane Society of the United States proved reassuring: “When the only other option is killing, we sometimes agree that relocation, which gives the wild animal at least a chance, is acceptable. Much depends on the species involved, the time of year, the area into which relocation occurs and other factors.” It was October, so game on.I examined the short tunnel of my newly purchased live trap. It would invite a curious mouse into a dark plastic chamber loaded with p-nut butter. There it would stay trapped inside the air-vented box alive and unharmed if readily released.At daybreak I lifted the trap to eye level. The shadowy figure of a live mouse was inside. A capture and hoped-for successful release on my first try! I knew what needed to be done next.The trapped mouse became my passenger as I drove to Park City’s No Name Saloon for a reunion of 1970s-era Parkites. About a mile and a half from home, I stopped beside a green pasture of tall grass still glistening with late morning dew.Hoping it was a good place for a new home, I gently placed the trap and its living contents at the meadow’s edge. Feeling ceremonious, I slid open the escape hatch to release the little mouse waiting to be freed. Watching the tiny frightened animal sprint towards freedom I admired and respected its desperate escape.Here was a mouse displaying an instinct shared by all sentient beings. I then unexpectedly felt the satisfying derivative of freedom. Unbounded joy.  Leslie Miller is the co-editor of “Reimagining A Place for the Wild”  and a former, long-time resident of Park City who now lives in Midway.    The post Wild Seeing: Lessons from a field mouse appeared first on Park Record.