moles - friend or foe?

This year (and not previous years, hmm) I've started to see lumps of dirt popping up in my yard. These are tell-tale signs of mole activity.



At first I was a bit annoyed. The mounds of dirt are not the most attractive things in the world. But on the other hand, I didn't get a sense in the pit of my stomach that this was a bad thing. So other than simply tamping the mound down again, I've held off on taking action.

I even felt a bit like the mounds were a good thing, but I couldn't say why. Like, maybe it was the moles way of pointing out areas of the yard in which I could be gardening more. Kind of a "pre-digging" step. Ha!

Then I started looking up information on moles on the internet. It's funny how the kind of question you ask will yield very different answers. At first I looked up things like "mole control." I got a bunch of sites on commercial products and services for mostly non-humane mole removal (poison, traps, etc.). But nowhere in there did they actually say what moles do, and why they do it.

In nature, everything is there for a reason. So I wanted to find out a mole's M.O. I started asking the question "are moles good or bad?" and then I started seeing signs all over that they aren't bad, and might even be good. Here are some interesting facts about moles:

They feed mainly on insects, worms and the like. If your garden is overrun by insects, moles are your friends.
Some people advise that to get rid of moles you can spray insecticide everywhere, and the moles will go elsewhere for food. This strikes me as being the most ridiculous idea. You have a natural, ready-made insecticide (in the form of a cute mole) that cost you zero money and doesn't get into our water supply, and you want it to go away????!!?

Moles are also natural aerators of the soil. Again, no need to rent an areator if you've got a mole in your corner. :-)

Moles do _not_ eat plants or their roots. However, their tunnels may be used by mice or other little critters that _do_ eat plant rootlets. So that can be a bit of a bummer. But so far I haven't seen this in my yard, and the slight damage this might cause is offset by the rewards of keeping things in balance.

In Germany moles are a protected animal. Yay for Germany!
To read more about our friend the mole, check out Wikipedia or other mole-related sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_%28animal%29