no crayfish left behind

I'll apologize in advance for this post, because I'm about to get preachy.
Yesterday as I was walking down the road between buildings at work, I noticed a live crayfish ambling down the street near the creek. He looked pretty dry, and not knowing a thing about a crustacean's ability to survive out of water,(apparently they're fine as long as they can keep their gills wet occasionally), I scooped him up with some papers I was carrying and got him back in the water.
As I did this some of my co-workers walking with me made comments that reinforced what I was already thinking: none of them would have stopped and taken the 30 seconds to do it. It seemed their overall attitude was "why?", when mine was "why not?". I mean seriously, it cost me nothing except my time.
I think it's part of a larger problem that I have. Most people I know use mouse-traps instead of live-catch traps, because it's just easier. With a live-catch, you have to take the mouse somewhere and let it go, preferably far away from your house, since they'll just find their way back. Why do that when you can snap their little necks and toss the whole package in the garbage?
The weird thing is, I'm not a huge animal-rights activist or anything, I'm certainly not a vegetarian by any means, but I do have a line that I try not to cross. I try not to kill an animal just because I'm too lazy to do the right thing. That philosophy could apply to so many things in the world, so many attitudes and beliefs stem from taking the easy way out, but that's another post altogether.