Pacific Northwest Gardening: HELP !!! I HAVE MOLES ! ! !, 1 by LakeLivingRos

LakeLivingRos wrote:
Speaking of wildlife webcam.. My neighbor found some night vision binoculars a long time ago and I remember him telling me when I first bought my house 3 years ago he could see animals in the bushes very clearly.. maybe I will ask to borrow them from him to figure out what exact animal it is living in the holes!

I wonder if rats have the same result on the juicy fruit gum as the moles? I just need to make sure I know what is exactly living, because I have spotted racoons and big rats now and possibly mole holes? I want to make sure I plan the best way to force them out!

I was researching the best ways to deal with this and in Washington state it is illegal to use rat traps.. I thought that was strange because in Oregon and Idaho you can? Apparently poison or smothering with smoke is listed as an option, as well as just coexisting. I tried the coexisting but that just made things worse. Also I am so against poison with my neighbors having outdoor cats and my dog, along with falcons/birds in the area! I don't know if I could personally smoke them out and smoother them, but maybe that would be the most humane as they would just sort of quickly suffocate? I never thought in my life I would be contemplating genocide of something on my land!

I have been taking 5/8 gravel and filling the holes or covering with larger rocks (after I ran out of all my clay pots that I was covering the holes with by sort of burying the bottoms down). I have seen 1 big new hole since that I covered, so at least it is slowing down the new holes and or making it more difficult for the animal to run freely underground until I figure out what they are for sure.

I took a photo of my clay pots in the hole, you can see how deep the clay pot is.. and how wide it is.. the holes are SO big :(