To the editor:

There are humane and much less expensive alternatives to hiring wildlife-removal services such as Critter Control, featured in the March 9 edition of the Journal-World. Certainly as spring comes, wild animals seek out warm, dry places to raise their young. As more and more of their natural habitat is altered by development, the nonhuman members of our community must make use of what’s left, which often means a human dwelling.

The staff at Lawrence’s Prairie Park Nature Center and Topeka’s Stone Nature Center can offer advice for preventing animals from taking up residence in a human dwelling in the first place. Both organizations also can offer practical advice about discouraging animals already in the residence and will rent live traps so that people can humanely remove animals from their dwellings, seal off the access point and then release the animals again.

As the dominant species in suburban habitats, humans have the responsibility of extending their fellow creatures patience, respect and compassion rather than to simply dismiss them as “nuisances.”

Kelly Barth,

Lawrence