Last year a mole appeared in March and wrecked our streams and banks, tunneling like a maniac and collapsing all our new hard work and sculpting of the 1000s of yards of good dirt we brought in. Tried everything and finally an old-fashioned trap worked after many weeks last year.

So happy to see, when preparing hole for trap today, that tree roots are growing vigorously through the ground and have reached out beyond tree wells and are not girdling. We planted everything in totally amended holes, did it all wrong, but at least in this corner didn't kill these trees. Yea!

Now hoping this mole is stopped tonight in the trap and instantly catapults to mole heaven and the damage is halted. If there was some way to never have a mole enter this yard again I'd do it!

I almost miss my former very rocky soil where no burrowing animal could make it.:-(

We bought these traps at Home Depot. They're heavy metal, jaws of death. The directions are on the box and on a paper you can take out of the box; both sets of instructions necessary. Comes with levers to set the trap and placement tips. You find a fresh mound on the main passageway and dig a hole, follow instructions for engineering and placing, and when the mole pushes through again bham! he sets off the trap and gets squished by the fast-snapping slam-hard jaws.

You can re-use the traps as many times as necessary. They weren't expensive. We bought at least 4 so we could target a few mounds. The sooner the mole is stopped the sooner the tunnels can be plugged and trees watered very well and hopefully damage reversed.

Moles are territorial and usually 1 mole per acre in adulthood. However, once your yard's mole is trapped and disposed of, another will find the tunnels and take up residence, proclaimed by those molehills. Walk your entire yard every day to spot these digging travelers in time, and set traps immediately. As soon as you've got the mole, be sure to fill in all holes and tunnels really well so there aren't air pockets under roots or air passageways that rob the soil of water.

I've never killed anything until last years' mole destroyed our yard and we tried every other method to get rid of him but failed. Had to use traps. Moles like worms and grubs and nice moist easy dirt. Now I know it's necessary to kill moles (and slugs) if I want my trees to live. Since I'm watering and hardly anybody else around here is, there's no way to convince a mole to stay away from the wriggling plump worms crowding this yards' soil.

Just looked up "vole" and we have those also.

Last year I was so desperate to get rid of the mole, advertised on craigslist for a gopher snake and found out it's illegal to buy or sell or procure native snakes. Read that toads eat gobs of slugs and then found out no toads in western Oregon.

Maybe all the thirsty hungry wandering snakes and toads from eastern Oregon will miraculously find their way to my yard? Until then, Home Depot's trap section, never thought I'd be searching THAT aisle!

We have 24 bird stations around the house and all that food and water invites other critters. Do have coopers hawks regularly, wish they'd get the little furry varmints.

It's true what they say about a new mole finding those old tunnels and using them. We squished the hills back down and tried to flatten the tunnels but those moles pick up the trace and burrow away. Thinking 4 traps isn't enough.

Hopefully that's it for this year, still amazed at how late in the year this one showed up. Can never be too vigilant examining yard for those telltale fresh mounds of dirt!

I could sure use a man with a shotgun ... actually I'm interested in finding a werewolf, would be very welcome and useful, but haven't had any luck finding one so far.

~~ shrugs and tries not to worry ~~

I imagine a mole in time could topple anything -- you should have seen my yard last spring! But hopefully a more knowledgable experienced person will answer your question :-)

I'm going to patrol this tunnel route every day to pounce on the next mole that takes up residence. This last one came directly up to the trunk of my newly planted sequoias. Ggggrrrrrrrr

Our house was a rental for 5 years and borders a park... our good sized backyard is all up and down, rough, riddled with indentations and rises from the years of the little monsters tunneling and settling- I HATE it, but we can't, at the moment, afford to bring a large rototiller in to dig everything up to loosen the hardpack and level it all out to start FRESH.

For now I have stuck to the fence line, adding in vines. It's all behind chicken wire at the moment anyway, since we have a 6 month old pup!

But with moles, there is almost no other way to do it.

My mother in law had a mole, and my brother in law set these electronic gadgets about 4 weeks ago (as I snickered and giggled in the house).

Mole still dug at one hundred percent.

So about a week and a half ago, I went and got one of the "Out of Sight" mole traps mentioned earlier, and set it inline with the main tunnel around 4pm.

By 10am the next morning, it caught the mole and I put it out of its misery so it wouldn't suffer.

The key is not mentioned in the instructions.

The most important technique is crumbling loose soil back into the hole so it falls around the jaws and under the trigger completely. That way the mole has to bulldoze its way through pushing dirt into the trigger. Otherwise, three quarters of the time, the mole will zip right through the trap.

I've almost always caught moles on the first or second day that way, putting traps by the freshly dug mounds.

The electric gadgets are a wasted of time and mental energy.

Ellen, 10 moles this year! Whoa

In a college class dealing with weeds and pest, the instructor said that moles can cover up to 3 miles of distance in a day.

Not 3 miles from here to there, but the day's travel's accumlated. Most move much less, but they can easily work in all 4 corners of a one acre yard on the same day.

...Liz

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/nwest/msg0914445415560.html?34
why are mole traps banned in wa??

The only thing that has worked for me is the heavy metal jaw trap. I tried everything else for months. My yard is in a peculiar state of new raw tenderness so is especially hard-hit by moles for the next few years. In winter there's a lot of running water here which doesn't freeze so the mole kept at it, finding worms and soft dirt and warm sifted-into-powder horse manure and tunneling, popping up, rummaging through and making a huge mess, literally coming stright up under the rootballs of baby trees and toppling them into the creeklets where he had already caved in the banks. So winter in this yard didn't even slow him down.

If you do a search of "moles" on gardenweb you'll find lots of threads and advice. I never wanted to hurt any animal but could not persuade the moles to stop killing my trees. Happy reading!

Every day I go examine every inch of the yard for any signs of moles. None!

We have possums, skunks, nutria, raccoons, rabbits, coyotes, and lots of types of birds. Nothing has damaged the yard like that one berserk mole when we first planted. This is a certified wildlife habitat and all is well. The trees are growing and their roots elongating. In fact the ground is beginning to be Root City.

The possum is very welcome because it eats the slugs. It has broken a lot of branches in the back corner Prairie Cascade Willow but hopefully the willow will recover. Will be doing a lot of pruning in January when it is cold and the trees dormant.

I am excited about the future year when the trees are so mature and established that a mole cannot hurt this yard. Not there yet. 2 years 10 months since 1st 200 trees planted. Almost 3 years!

We will have a huge celebration this coming New Years to mark the 3 years-in-the-ground milestone!