Lumps in the Yard From Moles

Mole Behavior

• A lawn covered with mole damage might look heavily infested, but moles live mostly solitary lives and compete aggressively for territory. Probably the lawn hosts one mole, but one animal can dig new tunnels as fast as 15 feet in one hour, according to Wildlife & Natural History Q-line. A mole hunts subterranean insects and spiders of all kinds, but feeds primarily on earthworms and white grubs. Because an adult mole the size of a small rat eats nearly its own weight in insects daily, one mole can quickly cover an entire lawn with tunnels and earth mounds that mark deep dens.

Identifying the Problem

• Mole control methods don't work on gophers, so determine what animal caused the damage before devising a response. Gophers and moles forage in different ways and eat different foods. The shape of the mounds these animals build reliably identifies the real problem. Gophers make many smaller mounds, shoveling out the dirt in a fan-shaped pattern and leaving the tunnel entrance open. Moles create fewer dirt mounds, but build much larger ones. The molehill will be more symmetrical and has no opening. After the mole pushes dirt out of the tunnel, the animal plugs the entrance with fresh soil.

Controlling Moles

• Moles prefer to hunt live food and generally avoid poison bait formulated to resemble their natural prey. Controlling moles usually means trapping the mole. Homemade pit traps made of coffee cans buried under gaps in runways might catch an unwary mole, but deadly traps succeed more often. Moles might use foraging tunnels only once, so don't set traps in tunnels that wander randomly across the yard. Find tunnels that run straight and set traps near forks. Foraging moles travel to their dens through these permanent tunnels. Since moles feed where worms thrive, cutting back on irrigation can drive moles deeper, resulting in less visible damage.

Cleanup

• Scalping the top of a mole ridge with a mower damages the lawn more than the mole did. Moles dig near the surface with a swimming motion without pushing dirt into molehills. If a mole runway throws up a long ridge in the lawn, pressing the runway down again before mowing should heal the damage. The dirt in a molehill comes from deeper work such as excavating a new den. Raking the molehill flat raises the level of the yard. Remove as much of the mound as possible to spread in flowerbeds or gardens. Raking and watering hides the residue in the yard.