Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
M
OLES
The natural history of the mole has been described in detail in the New Naturalist
monograph series by Kenneth Mellanby. However, one cannot conclude this chapter
without briefly mentioning something of its effects upon soils. At times, its burrowing
activities have been sufficiently troublesome to warrant large scale trapping simply
because of the physical disturbance caused by the runs and mole-hills. A feature art-
icle in
The Guardian
in July 1983 described a mole-catcher in the northern Pennines
whose record topic showed a total catch of 10,000 moles during one 30-month stint
in the late 1950s. “And when they sacked him, the mole heaps multiplied until there
was no place for even a sheep to lie down. So at the age of 71 he finds himself back
on the job.”
Mole runs act like a continuous pitfall trap for soil invertebrates which drop in
as they themselves burrow through the soil. Earthworms are the preferred and most
important food but various insects are also taken, particularly the active larvae of
beetles, flies and moths, such as wireworms, cockchafers, ground beetles, March flies,
leatherjackets and cutworms. Moles also forage for inactive prey such as moth and
ant pupae. Young moles may live on the surface for a time making superficial runs
through vegetation.
Mole-hills and other 'molesigns' provide a rough guide to the presence of moles
but tell one little about their movements. For this purpose, moles have been marked
with identification rings placed around the base of the tail. This technique is particu-
larly useful for mapping the territories of several moles in a field by recapturing them
alive in traps. However, it requires an array of traps suitably placed, and assumes that
you are successful in catching moles repeatedly without injuring them. A more 'high-
tech' method for studying an individual is to use a ring of radioactive cobalt 60 or
silver 100, and to follow its subterranean movements for periods of a few hours at a
time using a Geiger counter.
