Two Chatham boards explore space needs

By NANCY JANE KERN

LOONEY TUNES CARTOONS were a favorite TV entertainment during my childhood, and a particularly amusing episode was about a huge mole. I think Porky Pig was planting a garden when he noticed his plants being magically pulled down into the ground and disappearing. We had a firm understanding that cartoons were fiction, so I was amazed when the same thing happened in one of our gardens a few weeks later. I was watering some newly-planted pepper plants when one began wiggling and then started going slowly down and into the ground.

I ran and got a garden spade and turned over the soil to find the largest star-nosed mole I had ever seen, and it was munching up the last of the pepper plant like a stalk of celery. I was familiar with them because our cats would occasionally bring one home. They had a funny smell, and the cats would not eat them, making it possible for us to examine them.

My mother explained how they lived. They were such interesting animals that I have spent more time reading about them than about some other animals. Moles look like mice but have large front feet with large claws that are turned sideways. Think of these odd feet as excellent shovels used to dig tunnels in the earth. They also have hairless noses, very tiny ears that are undetectable, and small eyes that may only notice changes in light. In New York State we have possibly three species of moles: hairy-tailed mole, Star-nosed mole and eastern mole. The eastern mole is less likely to be found in our area because they normally live farther south and in sandy soil. This mole has a hairless tail, and like most of our moles, weighs up to 4 ounces, and is about 3-5 inches long. The hairy-tailed Mole has a short, hairy tail, and the Star-nosed is easily identified by its strange nose with 22 pink, moveable, fleshy projections. This is the mole, speckles, featured in the movie G-Force.

I love this movie and think of it as another favorite cartoon. This mole is seeking revenge for the extermination of his family from a golf course. It points out what most people think regarding moles, lawn, or garden destruction. They can tunnel 100 feet or more in a day to find grubs and worms to eat, and in the process may raise the surface soil in a lawn and kill the grass. These are feeding tunnels, and the moles are good at getting rid of grubs if you can tolerate the tunnels. Most people can’t, so the legally unprotected moles are exterminated. Besides the feeding tunnels, they make travel tunnels which may be much deeper in the soil, averaging 2 feet below the surface. Side tunnels may go even deeper and under tree roots, stones, or sidewalks that will protect a leaf and grass-lined nest burrow containing a family of 3-5 young.

Only the mother raises the young and has a territory of up to half an acre or less. Males may have a territory of about 2 acres, and travel tunnels may connect several territories. In these tunnels, a mole can move at an incredible 80 feet per minute. Males mate with any available female and will fight any other male, although the Star-nosed mole may be more gregarious and tolerant of others. During winter the moles do not hibernate and make deeper tunnels and burrows below the frost line. Earthworms do this too, so the moles have their food supply near them.

Star-nosed moles like wet areas and can swim to catch small fish and other aquatic life and have even been observed swimming under ice. Their large front feet probably make them excellent and fast swimmers for their size.

Hazards for them would be large fish, snakes, and possibly birds like the great blue heron. We are also one of their major predators. Across our country golf courses and owners of perfect lawns spend millions of dollars each year to maintain them, and mole extermination is a substantial part of it. It is understandable, but I am glad I live where the creatures around me can live without poisons and traps. They live in my field and woods and rarely disturb my rocky clay soil yard. The intelligent little G-Force mole, speckles, would be happy here.