I guess I never thought about the fact that there would be a course in lab animal handling, but I'm glad there is. I also like the pragmatic focus of avoiding animal experimentation in the first place, and reducing harm as much as possible.

In the EU it’s technically even illegal to kill mice you find at home. Only a properly certified person has the right to do that.

Is this really true? Here in New England our old houses are invaded by mice all the time, and they're a key vector in the transmission of Lyme disease. If we couldn't set our old-fashioned mousetraps we'd be overrun in a hurry.

And then there's the rats in Boston. We paid good money for an apartment in a nice neighborhood, but even then we had to keep huge rat-traps on hand for occasional infestations. I quickly learned that the back-breaking snap style traps were a lot more humane than the glue traps, which leave you with a struggling, biting rat you have to kill yourself. And those guys were over a foot long.