We use live traps in the house for two reasons: First is that if they have disease-bearing fleas the fleas will not leave them and look for something else if the mouse dies. Second is putting them outside means they have to run a gauntlet of barn cats, foxes, coyotes, and owls. It’s not like we’re really letting them go.
I hear you. We’re in the boonies out here. We have coyotes, bobcats, regular cats, foxes, owls, rattlesnakes, copperheads, etc. Everybody is on their own in this wilderness on the river. I’ve told them to BE KIND TO EACH OTHER! We have lots of deer & they have been allowed to live on the place & do as they mostly please with no hunting. Thirty years of animals of all sorts. (If they turn on us like the ones on that tv show about unruly animals; we’re sunk.) :o)