Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him

March 9, 2017 1:22 PM

A bitter battle is raging within the mole-catching community over the kindest way to carry out their deadly work.
posted by Chrysostom (21 comments total)

Top marks for post title.
posted by howfar at 1:31 PM on March 9, 2017 [7 favorites]

Terminate, with extreme prejudice.
posted by bwvol at 1:46 PM on March 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Bare hands, no?
posted by gwint at 1:48 PM on March 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

That was a lot more disturbing than I expected.

An inhumane trap checked daily seems only slightly better than an inhumane trap checked every two days. Odd that the existence of a better -- in so much as "more likely to kill instantly" is better -- trap is mentioned only in one passing paragraph.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:54 PM on March 9, 2017

Shouldn't've culled all those badgers in the first place.
posted by jamjam at 3:34 PM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

sucks and blows
posted by hortense at 3:46 PM on March 9, 2017

A papa mole, a mama mole, and a baby mole lived on a farm. One moring the papa mole stuck his head out of the mole hole and said, "Ooh, I smell bacon" The mama mole wanted to smell it too, so she stuck her head out of the mole hole. "Ooh, I smell eggs!" Baby mole wanted to smell too, but there wasn't enough room for his head to fit out of the hole. He said sadly, "All I smell is mole-asses"


Thus proving breakfast can be bait.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:48 PM on March 9, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm surprised it's that hard to build a lethal mechanical trap.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:40 PM on March 9, 2017

Wouldn't the Rodenator work?
posted by aramaic at 6:38 PM on March 9, 2017

lethal mechanical trap But then you have to remove the mole.

I've found psychedelics more effective.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:40 PM on March 9, 2017

I know this poem is about woodchucks, not moles, but it seems apropos:

Maxine Kunin, "Woodchucks"

Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right.
The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange
was featured as merciful, quick at the bone
and the case we had against them was airtight,
both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone,
but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.

Next morning they turned up again, no worse
for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes
and state-store Scotch, all of us up to scratch.
They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course
and then took over the vegetable patch
nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots....
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:01 PM on March 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

My partner would not let me take care of the moles and gophers in the community garden by piping propane down into their network of burrows and igniting it.

Some people are just no damn fun.

OK, so I would have had to pipe liquid oxygen down there too, to get it to ignite. Still. Some people are just born naysayers.
posted by happyroach at 12:22 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I was a kid somebody at my grandmother's house captured a mole and placed it in a plastic bucket. I reached in and picked it up and petted its soft fur for a while. I was told later that it could have bitten me, but all it had done is squeal, sounding just like a tiny pig.
posted by metagnathous at 12:41 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

You can just wait on the lawn until you hear them moving about and then fire a shotgun into the ground. It worked for my dad.

Or you can plunge your paws into the soil, yank the moles out and eat them. That was our cat's method.
posted by Mocata at 4:14 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

I came for the George Smiley joke. MeFiers, I am disappointed.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:35 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I would just have to let the moles ruin everything I own, because I coul never hurt something that cute! I skimmed TFA, but it made me too sad. Is there any attempt being made on any front to catch the buddies and release in a wild moletopia?
posted by Krazor at 4:47 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

happyroach: My partner would not let me take care of the moles and gophers in the community garden by piping propane down into their network of burrows and igniting it. ... OK, so I would have had to pipe liquid oxygen down there too, to get it to ignite.

Where I grew up, we called that the gopher blaster. Bit of a stretch to call it "organic", though, as that video does.
posted by clawsoon at 6:37 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Propane is organic, chemically speaking.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:29 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I would just have to let the moles ruin everything I own, because I coul never hurt something that cute! I skimmed TFA, but it made me too sad. Is there any attempt being made on any front to catch the buddies and release in a wild moletopia?

They're territorial and quite vicious about it. It would be more of a rodent Thunderdome situation.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:34 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mocata: "Or you can plunge your paws into the soil, yank the moles out and eat them. That was our cat's method."

Oh golly yes. Our old kitty used to catch a solid half dozen or more every summer, even in an off year. The most humane mole trap is a hungry little predator that thinks moles are tasty.

Other than that, I like moles more than I like the idea of a pristine (and wholly unnatural) green monoculture grass lawn.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:12 PM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Krazor, I'm pretty much live and let live, even with occasional rattlesnakes and black widows. The problem is caused by monoculture, as frogs mentioned, and humans killing off all the natural predators. Whether it's moles, whistle pigs, field mice or deer, eventually you get really tired of vermin, even cute fuzzy vermin.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:48 PM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]