Nature and Gardening

6651 readers

26 users here now

All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.

(It's not mandatory, but we also encourage providing a description of your image(s) for accessibility purposes! See here for a more detailed explanation and advice on how best to do this.)

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

alyaza@beehaw.org

NataliePortland@beehaw.org

LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org

remington@beehaw.org

Managing Moles, Voles, and other Varmints (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by GlassHalfHopeful@beehaw.org to c/greenspace@beehaw.org

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

How are you all managing the varmints in your yard? I've lived in a lot of places in my life and it seems I've found quite the mole and vole hotbed also known as my yard. sighs

My dog is able to catch them, but not without digging up tunnels, grass, and making a mess. My neighbor inserts "worms" (poison) into the tunnels, but I don't do that because of our dog.

I wish I could lay a yellow brick road for them to follow to a happier place, but they don't seem to be the type to understand. I don't actually want to harm any critters and thus the inner turmoil of humankind vs nature. I really don't like this post and I'm the one who wrote it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] WHARRGARBL@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

Our method of managing the rodent diggers on our property is to look at the big picture. We live among moles, deer, rabbits, hawks, eagles, roaming stoats, frogs, falcons, snakes, doves, wasps, sparrows, etc. They were here before we arrived, they’ll be here after we leave, and they live in natural balance.

If we spot a rattlesnake, we avoid that area for a few days. If a wasp gets in the house, we take it outside. Any spider lurking indoors who wasn’t nabbed by a bird or mouse gets a pass.

We “manage” by recognizing that we’re the intruders occupying their space for a brief time, and they’ll be here long after we’ve gone; we just get the privilege of watching them for awhile on their land, and it’s amazing.