Cash for mouse tails: a dying Swiss tradition?

Got a rodent problem in your field? While paying pipers fell out of fashion a while ago, paying hunters – usually children – a small amount per tail remains an official strategy in some regions of Switzerland. “Catching mice pays off!” declared a recent campaign in the local newsletter for Tübach, a municipality on Lake Contance, northeastern Switzerland. “Anyone who catches a mouse in Tübach can bring the mouse tail as proof to the municipal depot – you’ll receive CHF1 [$1.25] per tail.” But there’s another reason for the campaign, the mayor, Michael Götte, told the St Galler Tagblatt at the beginning of January. “We’ve been offering bounties for ages, but in autumn we noticed that not a single franc had been paid out this year. We wanted to remind people about the mouse bounty.” Not keeping the number of mice or voles under control can cause serious problems for farmers. Voles have one of the highest reproduction rates among mammals, with a pair able to produce more than 100 ...