First of all, how can you tell the difference between gophers, moles and voles? Gopher look a little bit like squirrels, measure about two feet from head to tail, and appear in over 100 varieties in the United States. Their tunneling habits wreak havoc on the gardens and pastures on the surface above.
Moles have bodies shaped like long tubes covered with fur. Their ears are invisible, and their eyes are tiny and usually concealed. Other than distinguishing between day and night, they are basically blind. Most varieties burrow, like gophers. Instead of eating roots, like gophers, they eat the tiny invertebrate creatures they find in their tunnels.
Voles are members of the rodent family that look like mice but have a thicker build, rounder head, and shorter tail. There are more than 150 different species of vole. They’re often called field mice in the United States and Canada. Voles also burrow, but they will also use tunnels that other rodents have dug and left behind.
Since all three types of animals are burrowing rodents, methods for control are fairly similar. Traps can be useful in capturing and killing gophers, moles and voles. Traps are available for burrowing animals; for moles, experts recommend the choker loop, harpoon and scissor-jaw shapes. Gopher traps fall into the wire and box varieties, while the most successful vole traps involve a paddle wheel that rolls the voles into the trap. If you use pellet-sized pieces of a Granny Smith apple, voles will tiptoe into the trap, not realizing it until it’s too late.
It’s not always easy to tell which burrows in a network are currently in use by the rodents below. For gopher networks, look at the plugs of dirt next to the mounds. The fresher the dirt, the more recently a gopher has used that entrance. For mole networks, you have to walk along the tunnel, flattening the opening and marking the spot. A day or two later, if there is a new opening in the tunnel, moles are using it. With voles, it can be tougher to tell, because while they will burrow new systems under the plants they want to eat, they will also use old networks that other rodents have abandoned. Frequently, you won’t know the voles have been there until they have eaten a good bit of your garden.
Once you’ve found out which rodent is burrowing and nesting in your yard, you can reach out to gopher pest control specialists or species-specific websites that will help you get rid of your infestation.
