If you have a mouse problem in southern Saskatchewan, you're not alone
Just when you thought 2020 couldn't get worse, it turns out southern Saskatchewan's mouse population is exploding.
The phones at Poulin's Pest Control in Regina have been ringing off the hook, said general manager Shawn Sherwood.
He said this has been the busiest year for mice complaints that he has seen in two decades.
That goes for residential calls and insurance claims.
"We clean trailers and cars that have had mice in them," Sherwood said. "Normally we will see them starting in March or April, and we'll be done by July. We're doing one tomorrow."
And the problem isn't localized to just the Queen City.
Sherwood said the company's Saskatoon office is seeing similar infestations.
Jan Shadick, who runs Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation in Saskatoon, said one way youu can tell there's been a bounty of mice is that last spring, birds who feed on the rodents had a large brood.
"When they're struggling to feed themselves, they're not going to have a whole bunch of babies that they know that they can't feed," Shadick said.
On the downside, she says her research shows while bird numbers went up this year, so did the number of birds injured in traps.
"We went from sort of one sticky trap last year to seven this year, so it's a huge increase," Shadick said. "We had four snap-trapped birds last year and seven this year.
"We had one that came in, and [the trap] had actually caught on the beak of the bird and just broken it."
That being said, when it comes to getting rid of mice, Shadick prefers people use snap traps.
"When they work, they're incredibly effective and quick and humane."
But why are there are so many mice this year? That's hard to explain, but both Shadick and Sherwood said the increase is abnormal.
Spikes like this usually happen when there's been a lot of snow the winter before — but that isn't the case this year in Saskatchewan.
Sherwood has a simpler explanation.
"People ask me, 'Why are we seeing so many mice?' It's 2020, man. What do you expect?"
