Voles are small, stocky, herbivorous rodents that can cause significant problems for homeowners and gardeners. These ground-dwelling pests thrive in areas with dense vegetation, using the cover for protection while foraging. Voles are highly destructive, especially in landscaped settings, due to their appetite for plants and extensive tunneling habits. Understanding their specific behaviors and the signs they leave behind is the first step toward effective management.
Identifying Vole Activity vs. Other Pests
Determining whether the damage in your yard is caused by voles, moles, or mice is crucial for choosing the correct control method. Voles have a compact, stocky body, a blunt snout, small eyes, and a short, furry tail. This tail is much shorter than the body length, unlike the long, thin tail of a house mouse. Moles are insectivores, not rodents, and are physically distinct, having enlarged front feet for digging and no visible external ears or eyes.
The presence of shallow, well-worn surface runways that crisscross the grass, typically one to two inches wide, indicates a vole infestation. These pathways are created as voles clip the grass blades and travel the same route repeatedly, making them easily visible after snowmelt or when lifting ground cover. Burrow entrances are small, clean-cut holes, roughly the size of a golf ball, often hidden beneath vegetation or mulch. Crucially, there are no noticeable soil mounds around the opening. This contrasts sharply with moles, which create raised ridges or volcano-shaped hills of soil (molehills) as they push dirt up from their deeper tunnels.
Specific Types of Destruction Caused by Voles
Voles’ herbivorous diet and constant activity result in significant destruction to landscaping and ornamental plants. Their tendency to gnaw on the bark of woody plants, known as girdling, is often the most devastating damage. Girdling occurs when voles chew the outer bark and cambium layer completely around the circumference of a young tree or shrub. This behavior is most common in winter when snow cover provides protection and other food sources are scarce. This interruption of the plant’s vascular system starves the roots, leading to the death of the entire plant.
Below the surface, voles cause significant harm by consuming plant roots, tubers, and flower bulbs, particularly tulips, lilies, and crocuses. A plant may suddenly wilt or die without an obvious cause, a result of voles hollowing out the root system from underneath. In vegetable gardens, they are known to eat root crops like carrots and potatoes, often pulling them down into their shallow burrows for consumption.
Their surface runways and shallow tunneling also severely damage turfgrass, leading to dead patches and uneven lawn areas. The combination of root feeding and constant movement creates a network of damaged grass and soil disruption, impacting the health of the lawn. Finding small, granular, dark brown droppings along these runways or near feeding sites further confirms the presence of an active vole population.
Strategies for Vole Management and Deterrence
Effective vole control focuses on two primary approaches: modifying the habitat to make it less hospitable and physically excluding the pests from valuable plants. Voles rely on dense cover for protection from predators, so removing thick mulch, tall weeds, and heavy ground cover is necessary. Keeping the grass closely mowed and maintaining a vegetation-free zone around young trees and shrubs eliminates the safe transit routes voles prefer.
Exclusion methods are highly effective for protecting individual plants and garden beds. Hardware cloth or wire mesh cylinders with a small opening, typically a quarter-inch or less, should be placed around the base of vulnerable trees and shrubs. These protective barriers must be tall enough to extend above the expected snow line in winter and should be buried six to ten inches into the soil to prevent the voles from burrowing underneath.
For reducing an existing population, traditional mouse snap traps can be used in smaller areas. The traps should be placed perpendicular to the active surface runways and baited with items like peanut butter, apple slices, or seeds. While commercial repellents are available, their effectiveness is often limited and requires frequent reapplication. Trapping and habitat modification remain the most practical strategies for managing these destructive rodents.