Beaver eats bush. Homeowner catches live mole.

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Pablo

Pablo

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Everson WA - Pacific NW USA
The rascal has appeared on the other side of the yard and completely destroyed a beautiful old (wild) rose bush. It was next to the compost heap was just ready to bloom. It was in gorgeous shape. I thought six deer had done the damage - nope - beaver ate it as a snack. My hot pepper goop on the red cedars does work....but this may be difficult.

First sign of mole activity - and right out of the shoot I caught a nice fat fellow with the shovel unharmed. Put him/her in a bucket. Jr. was with me at that point and mom suggested catch and release - I suggest how about the wilds on the other side of the bridge on the other side of the creek. I should have taken a picture, dang it.

No film at eleven either.
 
I also caught a mole with shovel, and also put it in a bucket, but with some dirt in it. We called him Jack, he burrowed round and round for awhile, and would come up to grab the worms that we fed him. We had him for a week, it ended up being a neighborhood attraction as a lot of people haven't seen a mole, and then he just up and died. Reading up they're evidently very difficult to keep in captivity as they're high strung. They also have some of the highest VO2 max values, which I guess isn't surprising considering that they swim thru dirt and thus need to be in pretty good shape. It was amazing how soft and clean his fur was.
 
I have about 10 of those little dudes in my lawn and I cannot catch them. If I do, they won't be a pet, they will become fertilizer.

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quote:
Originally posted by 59 Vetteman:
I have about 10 of those little dudes in my lawn and I cannot catch them.
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You can kill the grubs that they feed on (it will be with the weed-n-feed and fertilizer section). I use this windmill which has a ball bearing that rattles around and permeates the ground annoying the little guys till they leave. We had them pretty bad and now nothing.
 
I respect moles, wish I could just talk to them and tell them not to burrow towards the house, where their burrows have channeled enough water to flood the downstairs, but evidently I don't speak mole very well. Instead I sometimes turn into Capt Insano, and work on getting rid of their burrows. Getting rid of grubs and worms means spreading dilute nerve agent around the house, which I don't do with the birds that I feed, the bunnys that we use to let hop in yard, the dog, etc.

A coworker use to brag about trapping a couple of hundred moles in the course of a year, which to me suggested that he wasn't addressing the real problem. If you kill a mole you leave behind a mole condo and supermarket, as they run up and down their shallow tunnels eating the worms and grubs that fall in, and then retire to the deeper burrows. You gotta get rid of the burrows, which take a lot of work with an extensive system, and then deal with new squatters quickly. I ended up using either a tamper, a long 4x4 with handles, to beat the burrows down, and then resorted to spooning concrete into the burrow with a trowel and flushing it down with water until the water stopped flowing. In some cases I'd use a sledge to beat a section of 6x6 into the ground to collapse the burrow, which in rain and mud would make quite a mess. It took a season of combat, some parts of the yard got pretty beat up, but I eventually prevailed.

The concrete in the ground didn't matter at all, as I still haul many truck loads of pruning out each year and usually can't keep up mowing the grass. Maybe though it's also because I have 'Darwin grass', where it needs to thrive on it's own, maybe some water now and then or a bit of fertilizer early in the year. I don't want wimpy, pampered grass that dies if you miss a miss it's twice daily watering.
 
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