Indiana is home to the eastern mole, a small insect-eating mammal that tunnels through lawns and gardens year-round. If you’re seeing raised ridges of earth snaking across your yard or small mounds of dirt popping up overnight, moles are almost certainly the cause. They’re one of the most common wildlife nuisances for Indiana homeowners, and understanding what they actually do underground is the first step toward managing them.
The Eastern Mole: What You’re Dealing With
The eastern mole is the primary mole species found across Indiana. Adults measure six to eight inches long with short, velvety fur that’s typically gray to silvery-gray. Their most distinctive features are their oversized, paddle-like front feet with stout claws, built for powerful digging. Their eyes and ears are tiny, mostly hidden in their fur, because they have little use for either one underground.
Moles are solitary animals. A single mole can be responsible for an impressive amount of tunneling across a yard, which leads many homeowners to overestimate how many they’re actually dealing with. In most cases, one or two moles are behind all the damage you see.
What Moles Eat (And Don’t Eat)
Moles are strict insectivores. Their diet consists of earthworms, beetle grubs, ants, termites, slugs, snails, centipedes, crickets, and other soil-dwelling invertebrates. Earthworms make up the largest portion of what they eat. This is an important distinction: moles will not eat your vegetables, flower bulbs, or plant roots. If something is chewing on your garden plants, you’re dealing with a different animal.
There’s a persistent myth that grubs are the main reason moles show up in a lawn, and that applying grub-killing products will drive moles away. Purdue’s College of Agriculture calls this an old wives’ tale. Even in lawns completely free of grubs, moles continue to thrive because earthworms, which are present in virtually every lawn, are their primary food source. Grub control products are not an effective mole management strategy.
Two Types of Tunnels
Moles build two distinct tunnel systems, and recognizing each one helps you understand where the mole is active and how to target it.
Shallow hunting tunnels sit just below the surface, about four to six inches wide, and create those visible raised ridges that zigzag across your lawn. These are foraging routes. The tunnels passively trap insects and worms as they move through the soil, and the mole patrols them regularly to collect its catch. Some food gets eaten immediately; some gets stored for later. These tunnels are the ones that interfere with mowing and make your lawn look uneven.
Deep tunnels run 10 inches or more below the surface and serve as the mole’s living quarters. This is where they rest, raise their young, and hunt during winter when the ground surface freezes. When moles dig these deeper tunnels, they push excavated soil straight up to the surface, creating the classic molehill. These mounds are typically less than 12 inches across and five to eight inches tall.
Moles vs. Voles: Telling the Difference
Mole damage and vole damage look very different once you know what to look for, but the two animals get confused constantly. Indiana has three species of voles (often called meadow mice or field mice), and they cause a completely different kind of yard problem.
Voles are small rodents, 3.5 to 5 inches long, with stocky bodies, short tails, and noticeably mouse-like front feet. Moles, by contrast, have those unmistakable oversized digging paws. More importantly, voles are herbivores. They eat seeds, grass, leaves, stems, and sometimes gnaw on tree bark and roots. They stay primarily aboveground and create narrow surface runways about two inches wide through the grass, which often go unnoticed until snow melts in spring and reveals the worn paths underneath.
If your lawn has raised tunnel ridges and dirt mounds, you have moles. If you find narrow surface trails chewed through the grass, or bark stripped from the base of young trees, you have voles. The distinction matters because the control methods are completely different. Mole traps won’t catch voles, and vole bait won’t interest moles.
Trapping: The Most Reliable Control Method
Trapping remains the most effective way to deal with moles in Indiana, according to Purdue Extension. Three types of mole traps are widely available at local retailers.
- Harpoon traps sit on the soil surface over a slightly compressed section of a mole run. When the mole pushes the tunnel back up, the trap triggers and drives spikes downward.
- Scissor traps are placed directly inside the mole’s tunnel, with the jaws straddling the runway.
- Choker traps use a loop mechanism set within the tunnel to catch the mole as it passes through.
The key to successful trapping is placement. You need to identify which tunnels are actively being used. Press down a short section of several surface tunnels with your foot and check them over the next day or two. The ones that get pushed back up are active runs, and those are where you set your traps. Tunnels that stay flat are abandoned and not worth targeting.
Indiana’s Rules on Mole Removal
Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources classifies moles alongside chipmunks, voles, shrews, and common mice and rats as species that can be captured or killed year-round without a permit, hunting license, or trapping license. There are no limits on the number you can take, as long as the species is not endangered or a species of special concern. For homeowners, this means you’re free to trap moles on your property at any time without contacting the DNR first.
Repellents and Other Approaches
Castor oil-based repellents are the most commonly marketed mole deterrent, and you’ll find them at every garden center in Indiana. Results are inconsistent. Some homeowners report temporary relief, while others see no change at all. These products work by making the soil and food sources taste unpleasant, but moles can simply shift their tunneling to untreated areas.
For small, high-value areas like garden beds or flower borders, physical barriers offer more reliable long-term protection. A barrier made from galvanized hardware cloth should be buried two feet deep (a foot and a half in hard, compacted ground) with six inches left above the surface. Bending the bottom three inches of the mesh outward at a right angle discourages moles from digging underneath. This is labor-intensive but effective for protecting a defined space. It’s not practical for an entire lawn, but it works well for raised beds, ornamental plantings, or small nursery areas.
Vibrating stakes, ultrasonic devices, and home remedies like mothballs, chewing gum, or broken glass placed in tunnels have no reliable evidence supporting their effectiveness. Your time and money are better spent on trapping or barriers.