For the larger Mesa rodents like raccoons and porcupines you have very few other options unless you can get close enough to them with a snare pole, which is highly unlikely. For smaller rodents like squirrels then cage traps are about your only option if you don't want to kill them, if you don't care whether they live or die then use a snap trap designed to catch rats, it will effectively kill squirrels as well. If you're dealing with an infestation of rats or mice then just about your only option are snap traps which of course kill almost instantly. The only other type of trap available are glue traps, even most professionals will not use these as they consider them totally inhumane.



The main reason people use cage traps to catch Arizona animals is that they have generally excluded the animal from the area it was living in but it returned, rodents are very good at gaining entry to even completely sealed up places, I have actually seen a photo of a complete piece of external wall sheeting that was ripped off by a female raccoon trying to get back into the attic where her babies were, no one would want that kind of damage being done to their house by an enraged animal.

Cage traps can be very effective for Mesa rodents as they usually used with a bait the animals can hardly resist, and a lot of the larger rodents don't seem to be particularly upset when they do get caught in a cage trap but there are always exceptions especially in spring and summer, these animals are usually females with a nest for babies somewhere so this animal has more at stake than her own freedom. It is not that difficult to get most rodents into a trap, the question is what do you do with the animal once it is in the trap.

You have four options, option one is to find an Arizona wildlife rehabilitator that would take the animal, however they are generally full up and they also usually only take injured animals. Option two is to call your local animal control and see if they'll take the animal, if they will you can be almost assured that they will euthanize it, they had no facilities to care for wild animals, and today they are not allowed to relocate them. Option three is for you to euthanize the animal, most people will not contemplate this as it defeats the whole purpose of using a cage trap in the first place, capturing the animal alive and unharmed. Option four is to relocate the animal, until recently the usual advice was to take the animal on at least a 5 mile drive and drop it in some wilderness but studies found animals relocated like this lived an average of four days after release, current advice is keep the animal in the cage for a couple of days, see all the entrances it was using and then release it down your backyard.

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