The balance of nature is subtle and built on a unique interdependence of predator and prey. Humans too are predators, but of a uniquely damaging kind. Predators, except for ourselves, take the old, the sick and the surplus young of prey species. If predators did not do this, the predator would starve, but so ultimately would the prey. If the prey is not kept in balance with the vegetation on which it lives, it over breeds. The additional young eat all the food and then themselves die. Predation allows the most fit of both predator and prey species to survive.

On this basis, if you have mice and rats in your house, itžs less cruel and certainly more effective to acquire a predator, rather than to lay dangerous poisons. Poisons pollute the environment, enters the food chain, kills non-target species and inflict slow and agonising death on whatever creature takes the bait, or on any animal which eats the body. Predation culls the old, the sick and surplus young, who would die anyway, because therežs no space for them, and allows the animals most likely to survive, to have the best chance to do so.