In article ,
"richard holmes" wrote:

I have major mole problems. I have about 1/2-3/4 acre of lawnturf
(centipede) and nearly every inch has been undermined by moles. I have not
read anything that is really effective at eliminating this pest here or with
Google Usenet search. Lately I've been finding holes in the yard and
sticking the end of shovel down them and watching it go down 4 to 5'. This
is disturbing since I have a 4 year old who runs/plays in the yard and I am
fearful of his foot getting caught in a hole and injuring his leg/ankle. Are
these mole lairs? Will pouring anything down them help to subdue this
population?

Where do you live?
Moles leave "mole hills" of excavated dirt. They are territorial & there
is usually only one at a time living in a given area. They do not dig
deeply because they are excavating just under turf for grubs & worms, &
the deeper they dig the less food they find. Nor can they penetrate well
compacted soils that are deeper down. Their holes are not big enough
around for anyone to trip in. Indeed their actual entrances are hard to
find; mostly all anyone sees is the dirt shoved to the surface to create
the tunnels, & moles do not enter or exit by those dirt mounds. Only the
Townsends mole does so much mischief it's hard to live with, a single mole
can create dozens of mounds. All other mole species are very subdued about
their endeavors.

Pocket gophers on the other hand dig both shallow & very deep holes &
sometimes dig lots of them. They cast the soil around the mouth of the
holes rather than heaping up mounds, & the holes are sometimes big enough
for a child to step in, though a child clumsy enough to get hurt in a
gopher hole is probably already brain damaged from falling headlong off
the couch every day.

Gophers can be secretive in the presence of people & may not be easily
observed. Ask your local animal control about methods of controlling them.
Live trapping & release is sometimes not a legal option, it's elsewhere
the preferred method. Repellants exist galore; none of them work, though
you could go out every two or three days & put a shitload of cayenne
pepper down all of them, you'd sure annoy the bejabbers out of the
residents if not get rid of them. Crushing spring traps, scissor traps, &
spear traps placed by professionals do work, but are slow cruel deaths for
many a gopher. Poison also works. Pheromone-baited live traps (or even
pheromone-baited kill boxes) used during the breeding season reportedly
work best of all control methods, but I don't know if the requisit
pheromones are available commercially. The time to trap OR kill is late
winter through June while they are in breeding mode, & before the females
are raising young. Gophers are much to smart to capture when they're not
rutting, but just like people, not very smart at all when they're horny.

Many people live happily with gophers & occasionally semi-tame them so
they cease to be furtive, but their behavior varies from place to place,
some making only a coule hidden hidy-holes & a hundred feet of unseen
tunnel, then travel some distance away where there is a breeding territory
separate from a private food territory. Others more troublesomely make
dozens of holes mucking up the joint with a population that gets bigger
each year (usually only around agricultural land where there's scands of
food available).

It might be something else than gophers, but it's not moles if you're
seeing deep holes which a child's leg would fit in.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/