Anger over display of slaughtered moles at farm

FARMERS have become embroiled in a row over the stringing-up of dead moles as campaigners argue it is “traumatising” for children.

Moles create trouble for farmers as their disturbance of the earth can cause soil contamination of silage which can kill cattle. Although the animals aerate the soil and eat bugs, they can also destroy the root systems of plants.

Traditionally, mole-catchers kill as many as they can and string them up on a farm gate so that farmers can see how many have been killed, and pay accordingly.

A woman who lives in Furness, Cumbria, complained to Heathwaite Farm when she saw dozens of the creatures hanging from the front gate.

She said: “It isn’t acceptable in this day and age to behave in that way. Imagine all the children with that image in their heads. It will traumatise them.”

She said the moles were decomposing and starting to smell, and notified South Lakeland District Council, which is now investigating the matter.

A spokesman for Heathwaite Farm said: “In farming you have to control them and we get a chap in to see to our moles and that was what he did with them. I thought the moles had been removed. We’ll see that they are.”

Mike Sanderson, National Farmers’ Union (NFU) county adviser for Cumbria, said: “Mole-catchers who are employed by landowners – as moles are vermin – used to do it and have been doing it for years and years to show how many moles they have caught, effectively to show they have done their job.

“As time’s gone on it’s become less prevalent because people might not want to see that sort of thing.”

The NFU does not have a specific policy on stringing up moles.