Was hauling some firewood from a neighbor the last few days. He noticed the signs on one of our service trucks I was using. He had me take a look at a hillside of holes near his septic tank. He recently had Terminix there for a rat problem and was concerned that he still had a rat problem.




I told him no, that these holes and runs were from a network of meadow voles. Obviously they had been there for some time. I trapped there for 3 days being neighborly. I caught 18 voles and 1 shrew. There were no more were captures in the last 24 hours so I pulled my equipment and filled in the holes. I told him to monitor things for more activity down the road. I hit them pretty hard but he will most likely get more activity in time.

An interesting observation trapping this network of voles was the high rate of cannibalism that I noticed.

I said the next time it will cost you.

Just curious Bob, but did the cannibalism stop when you caught the shrew?

No, I had several more voles eaten up to their skull that was under the strike bar. Only the head and some fur remained. Never caught another shrew. I know shrews eat moles and moles will eat moles I have seen. Might be the voles like some protein in their diet when they have an opportunity.

Do you have many weasels in your area? I had a similar situation with voles and a chipmunk eaten to the skull, and I ended up catching my one and only weasel. I doubt a vole, or even two would eat their weight in same species when they are not known (to me anyway) to be carnivorous.
Always learning and this is intriguing.

We have some weasels around but rarely see one, but it is possible... They would have needed to be in the tunnel system to eat them from behind which appears to be what occurred.

I had all the exposed surface tunnel entries set up, so it had to be another vole or voles doing the eating. Most of the cannibalized voles as I recall were juveniles determined by the head size.

probably not the preferred method, but I caught a couple voles on your "Nutcracker" bait.

I have done that also and on our Woodchuck bait as well. If you are on them they will go for baiting traps.

Interesting set up, Bob. Is that a covering over the trap so there are no incidentals?

The cover shield is to funnel the animal like a nose cone, it secures the sides of the trap and it forces the animal to take the path you want it to follow. It also shields the set trap and the catch from birds and other nosey animals to a degree. It ensures a good positive catch a high percentage of the time. A very effective method for its intended purpose of catching voles

Every time I hear that @#$%^&* Terminix or some other@*&^%$# 'bug company' is doing wildlife removal I could just $%^&%$#$%^&*&^%$%^&*&^%$