If mice are smart, and can learn behavior in a lab, why can't they learn not to eat off the mousetrap once they see their friends get hammered?
by 
mustangsally
ANSWERS: 5
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As you said, it's a "learned" behavior. They must have missed that class.
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They learn by doing, not by watching. Only the higher animals usually show much ability to learn by watching others rather than from their own experience. The concept of "that over there is a mouse like me, so that if I do what that mouse does than I will get the same reward/punishment as that mouse did" is actually quite sophisticated. Whereas the concept of "I push red, I get food" is much simpler. Also, mice usually take several tries to learn something, and you don't get several tries with a mouse trap.
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mice are actually fairly intelligent, in fact ive seen studies where they have tried to pull one another off glue traps. However most mouse snap traps rely on curiousity with a food reward. Curiousity killed the cat, why not the mouse too? And there are certain instances where mice wont go to mouse traps, or they figure out how to get the bait off w/o gettin snapped. In which case glue traps, or baits work then.
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After I caught the mother and two babies, I have found tiny mice poop next to the traps that were not triggered. One day I found mice poop next to 5 traps! I mean on the edge of untriggered traps! I think they are brilliant! I feel awful that I have to kill these creatures as much as I hate them. By the way the humane traps catch absolutely nothing!
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Who told you mice were smart.
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