What are moles?
Scientific name: Talpa Europaea
Moles are small burrowing mammals, not rodents but insectivores, more closely related to shrews than to rats or mice. An adult mole is around 12 to 16 cm long, with short velvety grey fur, tiny concealed eyes and ears, and powerful spade-like front feet built for digging. They spend almost their entire lives underground in a network of tunnels, feeding mainly on earthworms and insect larvae.
They are found throughout Great Britain, though notably absent from Ireland. A mole is solitary and territorial, and a single animal can be responsible for a surprising amount of damage. As a rough guide, an acre of land typically supports only two or three moles, so the number of molehills is no reliable indication of how many animals are present.
Signs of a mole problem
- Molehills appearing across a lawn or field, often in a rough line following a tunnel
- Raised surface ridges where a mole has tunnelled just below ground
- Soft, sunken patches where tunnels have collapsed underfoot
- Disturbed or wilting plants whose roots have been lifted
- Fresh soil heaps appearing overnight, since moles are active day and night year-round
Mole activity often increases in spring, when males tunnel widely in search of females, and after rain, when worms move closer to the surface and moles follow.
How to get rid of moles
Mole control is genuinely difficult for the untrained, because the animal is rarely seen and works below ground. The realistic options are as follows.
What you can try yourself
- Tolerate them where you can: in a large or rural garden, a mole may move on of its own accord, and the damage may not justify intervention
- Flatten molehills and reseed bare patches to keep a lawn presentable while a problem is dealt with
- Be sceptical of folk remedies and gadgets: sonic spikes, mothballs and home deterrents are widely sold but unreliable, and no repellent is approved for moles