Mouse in the House

For the past few months, Sheena and I have been hearing bags crumpling in the cupboard under the stove where we keep all of our plastic bags. Our suspicions were confirmed a few weeks ago, when we discovered mouse droppings, or heaven forbid, rat droppings.

After this conclusion, we sort of went about our daily work routines still hearing sounds, but ignoring them. I don't know what we were expecting, since we didn't take any sort of action, but I think we both thought it would sort of disappear now that we had discovered it.

Today, we made a startling discovery that tells us that the mouse is here to stay. It has torn into a bag of wheatgrass seeds, removed all the seeds, and built a nest, replete with its own droppings. This discovery has certainly shifted the situation into our action threshold.

Sheena and I had a brief discussion on courses of action we could take before she went off to class. As I was raised to love animals by my mom who volunteers at a Wild Life Center every Sunday, we had trouble deciding what to do. Our best idea was to catch the mouse in a have-a-heart trap and let it loose in a local park. My counter-argument was that it would be too cold for the mouse to survive. We also both felt bad that we would have to destoy the nest due to the fact that it obviously took a long time to build.

This isn't the first time that I've been challenged to come up with a practical and compassionate solution to dealing with "pests". What should we do? On a larger scale, is it possible to be compassionate and practical with animals? As a consumer, I've indirectly participated in the destruction of many animal environments. Is it silly for me to pretend to be compassionate by helping one mouse, if all the products (environmentally-conscious or not) I buy do much more damage?

Update (1 hour later): I've removed all the bags and seeds from the cupboard and left the cupboard open. As I can see the cupboard from my computer, I've discovered a few things:

1. The mouse is actually eating the wheat grass seeds, not necessarily sleeping on them. However, I wouldn't rule out the sleeping.
   
2. According to a health web site, benefits of wheat grass include, "increased energy and mental focus: reduced incidence of cancer; fewer colds; reduced incidence of diabetes; better weight control; and so much more." If this is all true for our mouse friend, then we may have a harder time catching it than we had planned.
   
3. The mouse is definitely a mouse and not a rat! As a result, I'm still taking the matter seriously, but have lowered its priority in the overall action threshold.

Questions to Self:

1. With so much space in the cupboard, why does the mouse choose to eat, go to the bathroom, and possibly sleep in the same place?
   
2. Why did the mouse remove all the seeds (presumably one-by-one) from the bag, which they were in? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply eat out of the bag?
   
3. How was the mouse able to smell the seeds through two layers of plastic bags in the first place?