Catch and Release

Where are all these moles coming from? Or maybe they're shrews? There's one every night waiting to surprise us in the compost bucket.
Now we've extended the anglers' idea of catch and release to the rodentiae.
[Personally, I like to eat fish. I don't see the point of hooking them, possibly maiming them and certainly traumatizing them, and then dumping them back.]
Of course, our little critters probably bless anglers for making c & r such an ethically correct activity.

Northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda .

Just about any habitat can sustain a population of shrews: upland or bottomland forests, grasslands, weedy fields, wetlands, and occasionally even buildings. Population densities most certainly vary among these habitats, but can reach 80 per acre in moist forests with a thick layer of leaf litter and numerous logs. Shrews are active year-round and spend most of their time in underground burrows or scurrying through grassy tunnels in open fields or through leaf litter on forest floors. Because of poor vision, they rely on their sensitive snouts and abundance of whiskers to navigate; adding to their mystique they also use a form of echolocation, more often associated with bats and dolphins.

www.inhs.uiuc.edu/.../jan-feb99/shrew.html