Is it possible for relocated rodents to survive?

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Each year, tens of thousands of people capture wild animals in their home and take them back to the wilderness to release them. Whether you are discussing a snake, raccoon, or even a deer, there are instances where people have captured these critters inside their house and release them somewhere else so that they could return and live out their time back in their natural environment.



The question is one of survival. If you release a deer back into the wilderness there is little doubt that it will not survive and thrive back in its natural ecosystem. It probably came to your house from its natural habitat, and so simply releasing it to return handles the question of what will his chances of survival be once it is released.

However, you may wonder if relocated rodents survive is easily? Do these same creatures have the same opportunity of survival that a deer or some other similar animal would have? That is a very interesting question because it would seem that if you released animals like raccoons or possums into their natural habitat that the chances of them surviving would be quite good.

A close examination of this issue provide some interesting insights to help you to know whether your good intentioned idea of keeping this animal alive and not killing it at your home so that you could release it somewhere else is going to be as positive if you would like.

To know about whether your idea will be successful or not it starts with the idea of what kind of animal you are releasing. If this is a small critter, like a rat or mouse, and you relocate them to a park or forest area, even to an urban area like a sewer system, their chances of survival are quite minimal. Not only do they not know the predators that are around this area, but they don’t have shelter or nowhere food is and so their survival is at risk.

This is not as true of larger sized rodents. If one is talking about a raccoon or a possum then you returning it to a park are forest area does give the animal a significantly greater chance of survival. This does not mean that it is a 100% certainty that they will do well and thrive in this environment.

Once again, you must consider the fact that they do not know the area well, thus they do not know where to find food and shelter. There also may be predators that they are unable to defend themselves against which could lead to an early demise.

This may not be exactly the kind of information you are looking for, especially considering that you are trying to do a very noble thing in trapping the animal and releasing it somewhere else, but the reality is that rodents that are moved from their habitat to another location face a very steep uphill battle on whether they will survive or not. Read more: Rat Control, Get Rats Out of the Attic, Rat Trapping, Rats in the Ceiling, Rat Feces.