Alistair McEntyre from Assured Environmental Services (Lancashire) is expecting mole population numbers to be high this winter, due to the wet summer providing ideal conditions for the worms, and sometimes slugs, on which moles feed. Dry weather obviously reduces the number of worms on which the moles can sustain themselves during the summer months, and this is reflected in mole numbers being down the following winter, which will not be the case this year.
Assured Environmental Services are expecting a large demand for their trapping services for moles on farms. Over the past two years, this has become a major method of control of moles on farms, since the withdrawal of Strychnine. Their trapping team trap up to 1000 moles per farm in a season.
Alistair, Managing Director of Assured Environmental Services, says “We prefer to use traps, as the number caught is then evident when we produce the dead moles after each visit, which we usually leave on site. Trapping is a far more certain method than gassing, where there can be uncertainty as to whether the moles are being controlled. When you are seen removing moles from traps, it is obvious you are doing an effective jobâ€.