What You Think You Know About Moles

Mole dig tunnels everyday … they’re ruining your lawns, flowerbeds, gardens and landscapes!

If you are not a pest removal specialist or you rarely come in contact with moles unlike gardeners, landscapers, groundskeepers, and lovers of flower you might have a wrong understanding of moles.

There are a few mentioned facts about moles and these pests come in seven different varieties which are found in North America. You might be unaware of these facts concerning these pests that have been troubling your gardens, flowerbed, yards and landscape. There are several misconceptions related to them.

Moles are rodents…Moles are not rodents rather they are insectivores. They belong to the same family as anteaters.

Moles are blind…their eyes are very tiny and is just like a thin membrane located at the back of the snout. They are only able to sense light with their eyes.

Moles are territorial and live alone…moles do not socialize with one another and they can fight each other even to death if their territory is invaded with an exception of mating period. However they could share tunnels in a place like the highway.

Moles eat flowers and vegetables …moles feed mainly on earthworm, and never consume anything other than ground vertebrates like millipedes, ants, grubs and the likes of them.

Moles eat two to three times their body weight per day …test conducted on moles have proven they have great appetite and can consume on a daily basis food worth 70-100 percent their body weight.

Moles are eating my plant bulbs and roots …moles are mostly carnivores but they can kill plants indirectly in two ways:

• Grubs and worms are found majorly among the roots of flowers, hedge or other plants. The mole removes the soil around the root of the plant while searching for food hence the plant dies as its source of nutrition is lost.
• Some other animals especially voles would always make use of the tunnels created by the mole and would eat up any root or tuber it comes across.

Moles are nocturnal (active only during the night) …people often take note of mole hills in the morning. However, moles are not really more or less active at night or in the day. Research says moles work in shift for about four hours after they must have slept. They rather prefer to work during the quite hours of the morning or night. Most often, moles put a hold to their activities once humans begin to walk around and the ground begins to vibrate.

Moles Habitats – By nature, moles are woodland animals. However, they can easily spread out and inhabit any residential property not well taken care of. Since they operate through tunnel networks, it becomes very difficult to control or get rid of them if they are allowed to occupy the property for too long.

Moles spend a good part of their lives in underground tunnels or runways which appears to be a low ridge on the surface of flowerbeds, yards and any other landscape. These tunnels are created for the purpose of food search, nesting, protection, resting and as well for living space for traveling.

Most tunnels created by moles are often found under lawn turf, along flowerbeds, sidewalks, fence lines and dirt roads as well as places where insects are in abundance. The major tunnels measures about 6 inches away from ground level, the shallow ones are about 2 inches deep while deeper ones are 20 inches however, they don’t make use of the shallow ones more than ones.

Occasionally, moles show up on ground surface mostly at night in search of food, water, nesting materials and can as well migrate to a new environment during the night.