Knowing the mole to catch it better
The mole (Talpa europaea) is a small mammal with a black coat. It is about 15 cm tall when adult and weighs between 100 and 150 g. Its life expectancy is 4 to 5 years. This animal is classified in the “insectivore” family because it feeds mainly on insect larvae and earthworms. As everyone knows, the mole has very poor eyesight.
Some people claim that the mole has an “exceptional sense of smell” and that it can “smell its prey from several dozen cm away”. This is not true, it’s completely false! In fact, the mole only has an “immediate” sense of smell, which is a few cm away, and it can only smell its prey, in the open air, when it encounters it in its gallery.
But how does the mole find its way precisely to its prey? We would say that the mole has a sort of “radar” whose main tools are the vibrissae, its nervous system and its brain. Vibrissae are simple hairs on the snout and tail. When a mole is looking for food it moves around its galleries, stopping from time to time, to “probe” by resting its snout and tail against the wall of its gallery which allows it to “feel” the vibrations emitted in its environment. Its nervous system transmits the vibratory information collected by its vibrissae to its brain and it instinctively knows whether it is close to prey or to a possible danger and takes the appropriate direction.
Simple experiment: Capture a live mole, put it in a small plastic “sandbox” where you have put 4 to 5 cm of loose soil all over the surface, put an earthworm as far away from the mole as possible, stand back and do not move. You will see the mole wiggle around, digging into the soil with its snout and its tail touching the soil. It will take no more than a minute for it to move towards its prey. After this beautiful experience, which will have made you more intelligent than the “inexperienced thinkers who want you to believe that the mole should have lifted its nose and listened” (humor), be nice and free this poor animal. Didn’t Jean de la FONTAINE so rightly say “A lesson is worth a cheese”.
where the mole lives :
The mole lives in the ground (everyone knows this) whether in your garden, your vegetable garden or a field. It prefers areas with constant humidity. It is an animal that has a daily food requirement of the equivalent of its weight, which means that the surface area of its territory will depend on its food wealth, so it can vary from 400 to 800 m².
Mole lifestyle :
The mole builds its nest in the east of its territory at a depth of 80 to 120 cm. The nest consists of a dwelling of dead leaves and moss collected from the environment. Next to the nest are 1 or 2 food stores, mainly earthworms that she has immobilized, not by eating their heads as many people say, but by simply cutting (without cutting the worm in half) a specific ring that immobilizes them. From its nest the mole will establish its territory by first digging the peripheral galleries following natural obstacles such as walls, fences or waterways.
The mole builds its perimeter tunnels along these natural obstacles for a very simple reason. When it rains, the walls and fences will receive a lot of water that will run down to the ground and create wetlands that attract their prey. Then comes the construction of the main galleries which tend towards the interior of its territory, and from the main galleries the secondary galleries.
If you make a mole fast for more than 24 hours it dies. In a 24 hour period the mole has 3 life cycles of 4 hours of rest and 4 hours of work (equivalent to 3 days for us). The mole can swim short distances (e.g. to cross a ditch). The mole is a solitary animal that does not even tolerate one of its fellow creatures entering its territory except during the reproduction period.
Mole reproduction :
As explained above, the mole is a single animal that does not tolerate the presence of other individuals on its territory except during the mating period which is from February to April each year. There is therefore only one litter per year. The gestation period of a European mole is about 30 days and a litter gives 4 to 6 young (for information Siberian moles have a gestation period of 289 days). The young are weaned and become independent after 5 to 6 weeks. Once weaned, the young do not leave the nest, but their mother expels them from the nest and from her territory. Many of the young leave the mother’s territory by surfacing, so that many of them will be eliminated by their natural predators such as foxes and raptors.
nuisance caused by moles :
The only nuisance caused by this beautiful animal is the unsightliness caused by its molehills, which are simply the excess soil that it has not been able to pack down thanks to its robust, cylindrical body, and the possible mess it causes in vegetable gardens or yards. Otherwise, the mole is very useful and contributes greatly to the natural drainage of the soil and to the regulation of insect pests by feeding on their larvae. But it is clear that an overpopulation of moles leads to a nuisance and an environmental imbalance. If you kill a mole, its territory will automatically be recolonizedby one or more neighboringmoles in search of territory. It is therefore necessary to eliminate as many of them as possible in order to achieve lasting peace of mind.
control and moles catching by our mole catchers in UK :
I advise you to use the “Putange” traps which are the most efficient and which, if they are well set, kill the mole instantly with the least possible suffering, contrary to the “Duffus” traps which immobilizethem, suffocate them and make them suffer unnecessarily for hours before the trapped animal dies of exhaustion. For your information the “Putange” traps were recognizedand approved in January 2018 by the APMC (Association of Professional Mole Catchers).
André ROMAN -Professional mole catcher for over 35 years.