Just caught 2 this morning, back to back just like in his video. That makes three in all. I paid $48 for 6 of these traps. Our mole guy charges $50 per mole, so these traps have already paid for themselves threefold! Thanks!!
great information, I hope to get my pest problem under control before spring gardening and plan on including your products in my pest management control.
I can't believe so many "mole advocates" on here. Geez. Move to Portland Oregon if you're not already there. They love moles and even marry them in Portland. Other than that, I think this is one of the best mole trapping videos I've seen. The camera is not shaky, the sound is good, professionally done. Thanks. Education from the right sources is key. I've watched about a dozen mole videos on TH-cam today and this is the only one that didn't make me stop and go looking for a better video.
Thank you for that. Good to see that you wear gloves as some of these videos do not and I understand that they won't go near a trap if it smells of humans.
I seem to generally have small moles. When I dig up a tunnel, the holes are considerably smaller than the spread prongs, and have a time time to get the trap in the tunnel. Any suggestions on how to modify the tunnel to accommdate the traps?
I'm trying to trap moles round a friends he's infested and there must be 15+ fresh hills each day! I'm using tunnel traps but they keep filling them with dirt! Am I doing something wrong? Is it because I'm placin the traps too close to the mound?
Bought four traps(two pair) from Stephen off of Ebay in the late Spring, but it was too late to use them because the moles were not active because it was too dry and getting hot. Here it is in October now and the moles started up again with the surface tunneling. I set out two pairs of traps, and I finally caught a mole. Never caught a thing using Victor Out of Sight, Victor Spear, or Nash Choker Loop traps back in the spring. The Trapline traps are very easy to set, and they are easier to set than the Victor Out of Sight or Nash. Only down side to these traps is that there is no way of knowing that you have caught anything until it is dug back up and checked. I just leave the Trapline traps in the ground for 48 hours, and then check them. Of the four traps that I got, I did have to tune two of them. They would creep off because they are so sensitive. Stephen's directions tell you how to fix this problem. The trigger bar end is made with a slight downward slope for increased sensitivity. Just slightly bend the trigger bar end upwards with a pair of pliers to decrease sensitivity. Notice that the trigger bar end has been polished/stoned for enhanced sensitivity which is a mark of superb craftsmanship. Make sure to follow Stephen's directions on bedding the trap because the downward pressure is key to a well bedded trap.
Growing up, Dad explained to me that farmers didn't mind so much if you took a watermelon, but taking a lot of melons or damaging their vines were a very different matter. Anything, or anyone, that is an ongoing threat to well being will be addressed, and just because you're only doing what you do is no excuse.
Moles have already tore my yard up. My wife just twisted her ankle on a collapsed mole tunnel, and now they are tunneling in my vegetable garden that I depend on to supplement my income. All my peas are dying because a mole tunneled under the row, and that's causing all the roots to dry out. Start messing with my groceries and hurting my wife, and it is payback time. I have tried the Victor Out of Sight traps for six weeks now, and I have not caught a single mole. I have had one trap that has sprung once. The Out of Sight traps are not sensitive enough. Just bought a Nash Choker Loop, and it's got a hair trigger. Kind of hard to set the Nash trap, but once set if that ground raises under the trigger the slightest amount there is going to be a very good chance that there will be a dead mole. The Nash trap is not made for the very deep runs, although I do think it will work excellent in surface runs. It has not rained in three weeks, so the ground is dry, and the moles are in the deep tunnels. I finally found one of their deep tunnels. It was about 15 inches deep in my garden, and the tunnel walls were very smooth. I am hoping the Trapline mole traps will work in those deep tunnels. I am going to buy four from Stephen off of Ebay. Thanks Stephen for the videos, and the service you provide to the people that live in the real world.
I crushed up some chlorine tablets and put them in the hole and ran water in there. 3 moles came flying out of there. I was not prepared for that so I don't know where they went but the next time I'll be waiting for them so I can get rid of them.
I have a question about mole behavior. Is it true that moles are active year round and that when surface activity slows or stops they are still active in deeper tunnels and can still be caught? Thanks
Correct, and agreed. Of itself, it is an inadequate motivation. However my point was that survival is a competitive sport with very harsh rules, and extending more respect to the competition than they return is a formula for extinction. Yes, I know the moles are no direct threat to my survival but they are in my space and threaten things I have worked for. They will leave, one way or another. If they want to go into the forest, or even my neighbors yard, they are no longer my concern.
I have compassion for the farmer losing crops to feral hogs first, and for people choosing to walk in the woods unarmed. People have priority on my compassion.
The conclusions are unsupported, and they clearly say that it needs further study. Sounds like a committee wrote it. Some mentally disabled humans have lost sentience. Mom died of Alzheimer's, but she had already been gone for three years, so yes, it does happen and it is heartbreaking. You get a long time to mourn.
Oh, but according to most people, having self-awareness is not a necessary condition for a human to be sentient. Most people believe that perceptual consciosuness is enough to be able to feel pain and fear. And those responses in those experiments are nice indicators that we are willing to apply to mentally disabled humans to determine their level of sentience. By the way, note that those experiments point at more than simple stimulus-response conditioning according to those scientists.
No, it means I value the home we have built over the home the mole is trying to build. Biodiversity is good but there are other species I prefer to nourish for my yard and garden that the mole conflicts with.
yes, you can expect that, but we were talking about ethics, so the question is: would you tolerate my behavior? (Imagine the police would not stop me) You can be partial towards your family, and you would tolerate similar levels of partiality that I have towards my family (I will rescue my child instead of yours in a burning house dilemma). That is not prejudicial discrimination. But we are talking about the levels of partiality you would not tolerate, such as setting deadly traps.
Their evidence is pretty thin and the summary position essentially says the matter needs more study, so try to treat them kindly while we sort this out. And their definition of sentience seems pretty loose, essentially based on the organisms ability to react to threat stimulus in the environment. Nonsense, although that is no excuse to treat them badly.
@StealthBeast11 Its almost impossible to catch them...they are very smart and stay away from "dug out" tunnels etc and most the tricks of making them leave doesn't help either. Its either live with them...or kill them.
Live in a Hole... Live in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! Sleep in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! Dig in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! C-C-Cause I'm a Mole! Live in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! Sleep in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! Dig in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah! I am a Mole and I live in a Hole!
Then don't watch. And there's no cruelty involved - brutal, yes, but the animal feels no fear or pain. Cruel is the poison baits that leave to bleed to death.
@kleenezegavinscott I don't think you know what you are talking about. I set and placed the trap with my bare hands and caught the mole within two days. Couldn't have been simpler.
anyway, there is a scientific consensus that vertebrate animals are likely sentient beings who can feel the relevant emotions (pain, fear,...) This includes fish (EFSA 2009. General approach to fish welfare and to the concept of sentience in fish. Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare). For mammals (such as moles) the evidence is even stronger.
Eugenics is frowned on, while fish are a good protein source. Although I advocate humane treatment for everyone and everything, that is clearly relative. It is hard for me to view animals as livestock, but I accept that farmers and ranchers do. Sadly, some humans are so damaged I am unable to regard them as sentient. Barring catastrophe, we will probably get to have this discussion again - over machines.
@kleenezegavinscott Total myth! the sent of your hands does not bother the mole, That's the same as someone saying 'you need to bury your new traps' to stop them smelling new. if you know where to place the trap properly you will catch the mole.
does that mean that you value your selfishness more than compassion? (there remains a huge distance between human extinction and giving rights to all sentient beings. Only when survival comes into play, it becomes permissible to violate rights and well-being. That is because I give intrinsic value to biodiversity, and extinction decreases biodiversity.)
That certainly isn't the measure I've ever heard used! Perceptual consciousness? As in the ability to feel pain and fear? As they say around here, that dog don't hunt - simply inappropriate to prove what you're trying to prove.
I would prefer the incident had never happened, and empathy for another species can only go so far before you're just making stuff up. Animals certainly do feel pain and fear, plus attachment and grief that I'm personally aware of. Are you lecturing, Stijn?
Hello your video comes up on the TH-cam just before mine when doing a search of mole trapping. So I thought I should subscribe as you seem to be my competition. I know we are not really competing so I guess I should call you a colleague. I do lots of trapping in Michigan and I find it really interesting to see how many views we get on mole trapping. I have made about 40 videos on various things from mole trapping to iPhone repair but my mole trapping video gets the most views. I just thought I
the only problem was that i wanted to know how to catch a mole, not kill it. but can u try to make a how to catch a mole video because your vids are cool make a how to catch a mole video
If they were humans plowing my yard to plant a garden I would ask them to leave or call the police. But they are not human. They aren't evil, they are just animals doing what they do and in that sense amoral, and without self awareness. I feel no malice for them - unlike squirrels. Squirrels I do hate and will dispatch with prejudice because of the damage they cause and diseases they carry.
Nonsense, Stijn. Avoiding deer in the road is virtually impossible because they appear from nowhere, land in front of you, and sometimes just stand there and stare. I've been lucky so far and managed to stop although it destroyed the brakes. You're anthropomorphizing these guys, which is unfair to them - they're different creatures not just some kind of lesser human.
just consider them as a few mentally disabled humans who happen to run around in your garden. Their behavior is amoral indeed, they lack self awareness, and they do not understand your pleas to leave. And if you want, imagine those humans carrying diseases. Now, are you (or the police) going to set huge traps for them that kill them like moles are being killed? Or would you look for non-lethal methods to remove them?
Give the guy a break Alex - He does pest control for a living. A professional narrator would have better diction but less subject matter knowledge. And i want the moles in my lawn gone because they're tearing up the yard and eating the worms I've worked to encourage for 15 years. I asked the moles nicely to move on, but they pretty much ignored me - maybe I said "uhh" too much.
you have those affective qualia; they exist. And we learn more and more about neurobiology, to understand that those qualia are generated by brains, and that other beings have similar brain structures that could generate similar qualia. At least that would be the simplest picture to explain and describe those phenomena. I value parsimony in science; based on research, postulating sentience in other animals became more parsimonious than claiming that I am (or humans are) exclusively sentient
@gtechlfg1 Are you sure im the one in la la land and not you? because what im trying to do is the right thing. think about your side of the story and come back to me when your ready to back up your story.
@gtechlfg1 People need to understand the diffrence between life and death. Killing a mole for ruining your yard is a disgrace to nature. im not trying to fight with you here but moles cant help it when their natural thing is making holes in grassfields. try to understand what im talking about is the right thing.
Rarely is the animal killed in an instant, so most moles do suffer horrible pains. And even if they are quickly killed, it is not allowed to take away someone's future well-being without good reason. I say it again, be consistent in ethics. You value well-being. Well, do so consistently.
Stijn, so far research has shown that animals much below monkeys, chimps and apes lack even self-awareness, let alone sentience. Still, unnecessary killing is wrong - the rub is setting the bar for necessity; I think you set it absurdly high while you believe my standards are cruelly low. And yet, most people think I'm a tree hugger!
Actually the type of trap you are using is designed to catch gophers,but they work well on moles if they are set like you show. Moles are much harder to trap than gophers and the treaps made for moles are expensive and work no better than the gopher trap does . the trick is to set them for the varmint you are after.
Population pressure has forced them out of the forest and pastures and into suburban areas. Releasing them back into those ares will 1) Get them killed by a predator because they're in the open, 2) Killed by a competing mole group, 3) Driven back into the suburbs. What has been solved? Unnecessary killing is wrong, but they are killing our grass, and eating the worms we have cultivated to improve the soil. They have to go.
My grass does more to help climate change than the moles, but send more your address so I can try live traps and, if you're at least 100 miles away, send you all the "adorable creatures" I can find.
It goes all the way down the food chain, Stijn. And trust me - if you want to yield your position as an apex predator, their are plenty of other animals that would happily take your place.
I can agree with a hierarchy based on some moraly relevant level of complexity, especially in terms of important mental capacities (that relate to well-being). However, looking at those mental capacities, some disabled humans are not more complex than other animals, such as moles and deer. Simply belonging to an arbitrary and artificial category (such as biological species) is not a good reason to give someone a higher moral status.
I agree that some human beings are not (no longer, not yet) sentient. And I agree that further study is required to see who is sentient. Yet, their conclusions are evidence based, and there is no reason to suspect a pro-sentience bias. "The balance of evidence indicates that some fish species have the capacity to experience pain". These are not words of animal rights activists.
Or being killed by a gun, running the risk of being charged by hogs, or having to be more careful and protective when walking in the woods? Or being killed by a gun or having a part of your farmland teared up? I value impartiality and compassion, and I hope you do too.
No - new term to me. I think I i understand what you mean, but that term is new and somewhat suspect as an attempt to ascribe qualities that don't exist.
What would you prefer: being a human who has to break (and destroy the brakes) and who avoids driving cars, or being a deer who is hit by a car. And if you imagine being a deer, don't imagine having emotions that most humans do but deer don't have, i.e. avoid anthropomorphizing, because that will bias your judgment. Simply imagine having pain and stress when hit by a car. Pain is not exclusively human. By the way, also humans are all different creatures, not just some kind of "lesser you".
1) at least for a predator, the killing is necessary for survival. 2) If asylum seekers really can't stay in our country, and if sending them to another place increases competition there, it remains immoral to kill the asylum seeker. 3) Then let them live in the suburbs. Let the asylum seekers live here. And let them have a part of the grass and the soil. There are non-lethal ways to keep them away from the soil that we need for survival.
or again, what if there were mentally disabled humans running around and jumping out of the forest, as if they appear from nowhere? And these people are not "lesser humans". But they do not have things that you have, the things that you mentioned, such as self-awareness. After putting myself in their shoes (euh.. hoof; I should not anthropomorphise), using compassion, I think it is immoral to shoot them.
one way to look for adequate reasons, is a thought experiment of the veil of ignorance: imagine you will be born either as a human, a mole, a deer,.. But you do not know who you will be. You can decide what moral rules everyone (who is capable) should follow. What would you prefer: having to look for non-lethal ways to remove someone (a mole), or being crunched by a trap? Being killed by a gun, living longer but running the risk of being hit by a car, or having to drive more carefully in a car?
You might appreciate my partiality in a bad situation. We all make decisions from internal priorities that you seek to flatten through insisting all life deserves equal consideration, from the microbe to the blue whale. Nonsense. All life deserves respect, but more complex life forms are more highly values, and humans are valued most highly of all simply because they are human - my extended tribe - because that is my larger drive to survive.
I would say we should treat those fish the same way as we would treat some humans with mental disabilities, who have equal levels of evidence for sentience: give them the benefit of the doubt. If humans would be able to react and respond like those fish, we would conclude that they are sentient.
Yes, I was for real. 1) Moles are sentient beings who have a well-being and can suffer. That is a scientific fact. And 2) we value the golden rule and impartiality. Combine these two to determine the ethics of mole traps. It is a matter of ethical consistency
fish are a protein source, yes, but morally speaking not a good one, because plant-based protein sources better respect well-being and basic rights of sentient beings. Some humans are not sentient, indeed. But I prefer consistency in judgments: we would consider humans as being sentient when, in similar experiments, they can do no more and no less than those fish can.
You would agree that it is racist if someone would say "but more complex life forms are more highly values, and whites are valued most highly of all simply because they are white- my extended tribe" I simply replaced one biological category (species) by another (race), and note that complexity is not related to a biological category because some individuals of the category of humans, the mentally disabled, have lower complexity than others.
is it a good way to address the threat of those mentally disabled humans, by killing them using big human traps that work like mole traps? I'd say there are more ethical ways to address that threat to well-being.
Again, nonsense. Claiming that one race is inherently better is simple prejudice because it cannot be proven. You advocate valuing fish the same as a human - I reject that on multiple levels. You equate disabled humans with fish - I reject that, too. I'm beginning to think Europeans really are silly.
That is an inconsistent justification. The claim that if I don't kill you someone else happily will, is not a justification for me to kill you. Listen to what a judge would say to the killer. Predation is only allowed if it is necessary for survival. Killing moles is not necessary for our survival, so we are not allowed to be predators. It doesn't matter if it goes down the food chain, because it comes down to ethics.
Traps and mines are indiscriminate unless heavily specialized in some way. So let's assume you are carefully killing drivers in areas with large deer populations and I had the opportunity to stop you, I would.
killing a mole is a violation of rights, and an unjust balancing of well-being. Follow the golden rule: One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated. Put yourself in the position of a mole being killed. In nearly all cases, that's far worse than a human suffering from the damage of mole activity. The huge loss of well-being of the mole cannot be justified by the small difference in well-being of the human.
@Robert Lane Being human is not relevant, just like being white, being male, being adult, being mammal, being primate,... are not relevant. The only thing that is relevant here is whether or not the victim, the mole, dislikes the mole trap experience.
@Robert Lane So someone may kill you and justify that by simply saying that the air says that your life and your feelings are irrelevant... No, it is not good to simply deny someone's value to life. Your lawn is not a sentient being, has not consciousness and does not have preferences, which means your lawn doesn't care about moles being present and doesn't make any choice that someone must go. Whether worms are sentient is uncertain, but I'm sure caring for worms is not your motivation to kill moles.
@Robert Lane What has that got to do with it? No, my home doesn't have rats, and I don't hug rats. It is simple: we should not kill others for trivial reasons. That doesn't mean you have to kiss others. Your response is similar to a racist murderer who argues: "I plead not guilty, your honor. Yes, I murdered those foreigners, but if you think that is not allowed, I'm sure you have a great home infested with immigrants that you hug and kiss."
@@stijnbruers You're stupid. You're comparing killing moles to racist murderers. What the heck is wrong with you. Get on some meds. Moles populate like rats. When you are infested with them, it's a huge problem. They will cause your driveway to sink in and even collapse. Being nice to rodents is plain weird and not very smart. My $20k driveway is not going to be sacrificed because you think moles are people.
@@robertlane721 Suppose there exists a human trap that works just like a mole trap to kill humans. It works like a kind of guillotine that crushes the body. And suppose a racist murderer uses such human traps to kill humans. At least one of the reasons why such a human trap is immoral, is that it causes great agony and unwanted death to its victim. You don't want to be captured in such a human trap. But this same reason exactly applies to mole traps as well: such traps cause great agony and unwanted death to its victims. That is why the comparison is valid. If you disagree, you have to argue why the comparison is invalid. The fact that moles populate like rats is irrelevant, because then that racist murderer could easily justify killing humans by saying that those foreigners populate like rats. I'm sure you can figure out better ways to protect your driveway. But if not: even if a foreigner destroys your $20k driveway, you are not allowed to apply a guillotine to him. The same goes for moles.
You mistakenly assume I accept that fish are sentient. Again, the "study" you refer to is agenda driven rather than scientific so i reject the conclusion. It may ultimately be proven correct, but that would be accidental; As it stands, it's bad science but since it has authority people will accept and repeat it. And it's frightening when that happens.
You knew when you came to this site what you would see, why this self destructive behavior. Please think of yourself and take better care of your mental health.
From this I can conclude that you are too partial. That is discrimination. And by the way, you do not show similar levels of partiality towards your own family against other humans. You are not a "familyist", nor a racist, but you are a speciesist if you have that level of partiality towards humans. I value consistency and non-arbitrariness. Picking the human species is like picking the population of whites, the order of primates, the class of mammals or whatever category: way too arbitrary.
Just caught 2 this morning, back to back just like in his video. That makes three in all. I paid $48 for 6 of these traps. Our mole guy charges $50 per mole, so these traps have already paid for themselves threefold! Thanks!!
Thank you for being so detailed in your videos ! You Rock !
great information, I hope to get my pest problem under control before spring gardening and plan on including your products in my pest management control.
Trapline is all I’ve ever used. Over 1000 trapped gophers/miles and counting. Nothing else even comes close
Steve - thanks for inventing this awesome product. Very easy to set, place and KILL!
I can't believe so many "mole advocates" on here. Geez. Move to Portland Oregon if you're not already there. They love moles and even marry them in Portland. Other than that, I think this is one of the best mole trapping videos I've seen. The camera is not shaky, the sound is good, professionally done. Thanks. Education from the right sources is key. I've watched about a dozen mole videos on TH-cam today and this is the only one that didn't make me stop and go looking for a better video.
Nice job! I liked.
Nice job!
Thank you for that. Good to see that you wear gloves as some of these videos do not and I understand that they won't go near a trap if it smells of humans.
I have trapped 40 of them in the last 5 years in my half acre lawn and never worn gloves
I seem to generally have small moles. When I dig up a tunnel, the holes are considerably smaller than the spread prongs, and have a time time to get the trap in the tunnel. Any suggestions on how to modify the tunnel to accommdate the traps?
Good kill. I caught a fairly large one with the pressure plate and spike trap.
The only traps that work trapline
Thank you! 😎👍
@Twisted86
Actually I just caught one and released it in an appropriate area this week, using a 5 gallon bucket buried in a run. Works!
5 gal bucket.. that moving over 100 lbs of dirt. you';re doing more damage than the mole. get help
I'm trying to trap moles round a friends he's infested and there must be 15+ fresh hills each day! I'm using tunnel traps but they keep filling them with dirt! Am I doing something wrong? Is it because I'm placin the traps too close to the mound?
I use a shovel and patience. Works 100% of the time!
Bought four traps(two pair) from Stephen off of Ebay in the late Spring, but it was too late to use them because the moles were not active because it was too dry and getting hot.
Here it is in October now and the moles started up again with the surface tunneling. I set out two pairs of traps, and I finally caught a mole. Never caught a thing using Victor Out of Sight, Victor Spear, or Nash Choker Loop traps back in the spring.
The Trapline traps are very easy to set, and they are easier to set than the Victor Out of Sight or Nash. Only down side to these traps is that there is no way of knowing that you have caught anything until it is dug back up and checked. I just leave the Trapline traps in the ground for 48 hours, and then check them.
Of the four traps that I got, I did have to tune two of them. They would creep off because they are so sensitive. Stephen's directions tell you how to fix this problem. The trigger bar end is made with a slight downward slope for increased sensitivity. Just slightly bend the trigger bar end upwards with a pair of pliers to decrease sensitivity. Notice that the trigger bar end has been polished/stoned for enhanced sensitivity which is a mark of superb craftsmanship.
Make sure to follow Stephen's directions on bedding the trap because the downward pressure is key to a well bedded trap.
Look forwarding to setting the traps I just received. Thanks for the video Stephen! On a side note, Stijn Bruers needs to chill out.
Growing up, Dad explained to me that farmers didn't mind so much if you took a watermelon, but taking a lot of melons or damaging their vines were a very different matter. Anything, or anyone, that is an ongoing threat to well being will be addressed, and just because you're only doing what you do is no excuse.
Moles have already tore my yard up. My wife just twisted her ankle on a collapsed mole tunnel, and now they are tunneling in my vegetable garden that I depend on to supplement my income. All my peas are dying because a mole tunneled under the row, and that's causing all the roots to dry out.
Start messing with my groceries and hurting my wife, and it is payback time. I have tried the Victor Out of Sight traps for six weeks now, and I have not caught a single mole. I have had one trap that has sprung once. The Out of Sight traps are not sensitive enough.
Just bought a Nash Choker Loop, and it's got a hair trigger. Kind of hard to set the Nash trap, but once set if that ground raises under the trigger the slightest amount there is going to be a very good chance that there will be a dead mole.
The Nash trap is not made for the very deep runs, although I do think it will work excellent in surface runs. It has not rained in three weeks, so the ground is dry, and the moles are in the deep tunnels. I finally found one of their deep tunnels. It was about 15 inches deep in my garden, and the tunnel walls were very smooth. I am hoping the Trapline mole traps will work in those deep tunnels. I am going to buy four from Stephen off of Ebay.
Thanks Stephen for the videos, and the service you provide to the people that live in the real world.
I crushed up some chlorine tablets and put them in the hole and ran water in there. 3 moles came flying out of there. I was not prepared for that so I don't know where they went but the next time I'll be waiting for them so I can get rid of them.
I have a question about mole behavior. Is it true that moles are active year round and that when surface activity slows or stops they are still active in deeper tunnels and can still be caught? Thanks
Figured - and I lecture on computers and study neurobiology on the side.
Correct, and agreed. Of itself, it is an inadequate motivation. However my point was that survival is a competitive sport with very harsh rules, and extending more respect to the competition than they return is a formula for extinction. Yes, I know the moles are no direct threat to my survival but they are in my space and threaten things I have worked for. They will leave, one way or another. If they want to go into the forest, or even my neighbors yard, they are no longer my concern.
I heard that if you catch a mole on a full moon than it will relinquish it's pot of gold to you
perhaps you know the notion of perceptual consciosuness by some synonyms. A more technical term would be: having "affective qualia".
I have compassion for the farmer losing crops to feral hogs first, and for people choosing to walk in the woods unarmed. People have priority on my compassion.
The conclusions are unsupported, and they clearly say that it needs further study. Sounds like a committee wrote it. Some mentally disabled humans have lost sentience. Mom died of Alzheimer's, but she had already been gone for three years, so yes, it does happen and it is heartbreaking. You get a long time to mourn.
Oh, but according to most people, having self-awareness is not a necessary condition for a human to be sentient. Most people believe that perceptual consciosuness is enough to be able to feel pain and fear. And those responses in those experiments are nice indicators that we are willing to apply to mentally disabled humans to determine their level of sentience. By the way, note that those experiments point at more than simple stimulus-response conditioning according to those scientists.
No, it means I value the home we have built over the home the mole is trying to build. Biodiversity is good but there are other species I prefer to nourish for my yard and garden that the mole conflicts with.
Cool
yes, you can expect that, but we were talking about ethics, so the question is: would you tolerate my behavior? (Imagine the police would not stop me) You can be partial towards your family, and you would tolerate similar levels of partiality that I have towards my family (I will rescue my child instead of yours in a burning house dilemma). That is not prejudicial discrimination. But we are talking about the levels of partiality you would not tolerate, such as setting deadly traps.
Their evidence is pretty thin and the summary position essentially says the matter needs more study, so try to treat them kindly while we sort this out. And their definition of sentience seems pretty loose, essentially based on the organisms ability to react to threat stimulus in the environment. Nonsense, although that is no excuse to treat them badly.
@StealthBeast11
Its almost impossible to catch them...they are very smart and stay away from "dug out" tunnels etc and most the tricks of making them leave doesn't help either.
Its either live with them...or kill them.
Live in a Hole...
Live in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
Sleep in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
Dig in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
C-C-Cause I'm a Mole!
Live in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
Sleep in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
Dig in a Hole, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah!
I am a Mole and I live in a Hole!
Then don't watch. And there's no cruelty involved - brutal, yes, but the animal feels no fear or pain. Cruel is the poison baits that leave to bleed to death.
@kleenezegavinscott I don't think you know what you are talking about. I set and placed the trap with my bare hands and caught the mole within two days. Couldn't have been simpler.
anyway, there is a scientific consensus that vertebrate animals are likely sentient beings who can feel the relevant emotions (pain, fear,...) This includes fish (EFSA 2009. General approach to fish welfare and to the concept of sentience in fish. Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare). For mammals (such as moles) the evidence is even stronger.
Eugenics is frowned on, while fish are a good protein source. Although I advocate humane treatment for everyone and everything, that is clearly relative. It is hard for me to view animals as livestock, but I accept that farmers and ranchers do. Sadly, some humans are so damaged I am unable to regard them as sentient. Barring catastrophe, we will probably get to have this discussion again - over machines.
@kleenezegavinscott Total myth! the sent of your hands does not bother the mole, That's the same as someone saying 'you need to bury your new traps' to stop them smelling new. if you know where to place the trap properly you will catch the mole.
does that mean that you value your selfishness more than compassion? (there remains a huge distance between human extinction and giving rights to all sentient beings. Only when survival comes into play, it becomes permissible to violate rights and well-being. That is because I give intrinsic value to biodiversity, and extinction decreases biodiversity.)
If I were to trash my neighbour's gardens the way the moles do I would expect to be killed:-)
That certainly isn't the measure I've ever heard used! Perceptual consciousness? As in the ability to feel pain and fear? As they say around here, that dog don't hunt - simply inappropriate to prove what you're trying to prove.
I would prefer the incident had never happened, and empathy for another species can only go so far before you're just making stuff up. Animals certainly do feel pain and fear, plus attachment and grief that I'm personally aware of. Are you lecturing, Stijn?
Hello your video comes up on the TH-cam just before mine when doing a search of mole trapping. So I thought I should subscribe as you seem to be my competition. I know we are not really competing so I guess I should call you a colleague. I do lots of trapping in Michigan and I find it really interesting to see how many views we get on mole trapping. I have made about 40 videos on various things from mole trapping to iPhone repair but my mole trapping video gets the most views. I just thought I
the only problem was that i wanted to know how to catch a mole, not kill it. but can u try to make a how to catch a mole video because your vids are cool make a how to catch a mole video
Or you could just blind "dark mole".
If they were humans plowing my yard to plant a garden I would ask them to leave or call the police. But they are not human. They aren't evil, they are just animals doing what they do and in that sense amoral, and without self awareness. I feel no malice for them - unlike squirrels. Squirrels I do hate and will dispatch with prejudice because of the damage they cause and diseases they carry.
Hi
Nice man! Does drowning them work? I mean... flushing water into the tunnels?
YES IT DOES, GOT 2 TODAY
Shame some humans are not drowned...
I don't do well with cinch traps.
Nonsense, Stijn. Avoiding deer in the road is virtually impossible because they appear from nowhere, land in front of you, and sometimes just stand there and stare. I've been lucky so far and managed to stop although it destroyed the brakes. You're anthropomorphizing these guys, which is unfair to them - they're different creatures not just some kind of lesser human.
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@fredzilla77 I think you need to come into the real world and not the world of la la land where you are at the minute.
just consider them as a few mentally disabled humans who happen to run around in your garden. Their behavior is amoral indeed, they lack self awareness, and they do not understand your pleas to leave. And if you want, imagine those humans carrying diseases. Now, are you (or the police) going to set huge traps for them that kill them like moles are being killed? Or would you look for non-lethal methods to remove them?
Give the guy a break Alex - He does pest control for a living. A professional narrator would have better diction but less subject matter knowledge. And i want the moles in my lawn gone because they're tearing up the yard and eating the worms I've worked to encourage for 15 years. I asked the moles nicely to move on, but they pretty much ignored me - maybe I said "uhh" too much.
you have those affective qualia; they exist. And we learn more and more about neurobiology, to understand that those qualia are generated by brains, and that other beings have similar brain structures that could generate similar qualia. At least that would be the simplest picture to explain and describe those phenomena. I value parsimony in science; based on research, postulating sentience in other animals became more parsimonious than claiming that I am (or humans are) exclusively sentient
@duncan7599 they could me voles or gophers
@gtechlfg1 Are you sure im the one in la la land and not you? because what im trying to do is the right thing. think about your side of the story and come back to me when your ready to back up your story.
@gtechlfg1 People need to understand the diffrence between life and death. Killing a mole for ruining your yard is a disgrace to nature. im not trying to fight with you here but moles cant help it when their natural thing is making holes in grassfields. try to understand what im talking about is the right thing.
Rarely is the animal killed in an instant, so most moles do suffer horrible pains. And even if they are quickly killed, it is not allowed to take away someone's future well-being without good reason. I say it again, be consistent in ethics. You value well-being. Well, do so consistently.
I would require evidence of self awareness instead of settling for stimulus-response behavior and simple aversion conditioning.
Stijn, so far research has shown that animals much below monkeys, chimps and apes lack even self-awareness, let alone sentience. Still, unnecessary killing is wrong - the rub is setting the bar for necessity; I think you set it absurdly high while you believe my standards are cruelly low. And yet, most people think I'm a tree hugger!
Actually the type of trap you are using is designed to catch gophers,but they work well on moles if they are set like you show. Moles are much harder to trap than gophers and the treaps made for moles are expensive and work no better than the gopher trap does . the trick is to set them for the varmint you are after.
Population pressure has forced them out of the forest and pastures and into suburban areas. Releasing them back into those ares will 1) Get them killed by a predator because they're in the open, 2) Killed by a competing mole group, 3) Driven back into the suburbs. What has been solved?
Unnecessary killing is wrong, but they are killing our grass, and eating the worms we have cultivated to improve the soil. They have to go.
My grass does more to help climate change than the moles, but send more your address so I can try live traps and, if you're at least 100 miles away, send you all the "adorable creatures" I can find.
It goes all the way down the food chain, Stijn. And trust me - if you want to yield your position as an apex predator, their are plenty of other animals that would happily take your place.
Just increase your empathy for the moles, increase their moral status, and you will see non-lethal options popping up.
I can agree with a hierarchy based on some moraly relevant level of complexity, especially in terms of important mental capacities (that relate to well-being). However, looking at those mental capacities, some disabled humans are not more complex than other animals, such as moles and deer. Simply belonging to an arbitrary and artificial category (such as biological species) is not a good reason to give someone a higher moral status.
I agree that some human beings are not (no longer, not yet) sentient. And I agree that further study is required to see who is sentient. Yet, their conclusions are evidence based, and there is no reason to suspect a pro-sentience bias. "The balance of evidence indicates that some fish species have the capacity to experience pain". These are not words of animal rights activists.
Or being killed by a gun, running the risk of being charged by hogs, or having to be more careful and protective when walking in the woods? Or being killed by a gun or having a part of your farmland teared up? I value impartiality and compassion, and I hope you do too.
No - new term to me. I think I i understand what you mean, but that term is new and somewhat suspect as an attempt to ascribe qualities that don't exist.
What would you prefer: being a human who has to break (and destroy the brakes) and who avoids driving cars, or being a deer who is hit by a car. And if you imagine being a deer, don't imagine having emotions that most humans do but deer don't have, i.e. avoid anthropomorphizing, because that will bias your judgment. Simply imagine having pain and stress when hit by a car. Pain is not exclusively human. By the way, also humans are all different creatures, not just some kind of "lesser you".
1) at least for a predator, the killing is necessary for survival. 2) If asylum seekers really can't stay in our country, and if sending them to another place increases competition there, it remains immoral to kill the asylum seeker. 3) Then let them live in the suburbs. Let the asylum seekers live here. And let them have a part of the grass and the soil. There are non-lethal ways to keep them away from the soil that we need for survival.
DIY mole removal: th-cam.com/video/hfXWM1a-rHQ/w-d-xo.html
or again, what if there were mentally disabled humans running around and jumping out of the forest, as if they appear from nowhere? And these people are not "lesser humans". But they do not have things that you have, the things that you mentioned, such as self-awareness. After putting myself in their shoes (euh.. hoof; I should not anthropomorphise), using compassion, I think it is immoral to shoot them.
one way to look for adequate reasons, is a thought experiment of the veil of ignorance: imagine you will be born either as a human, a mole, a deer,.. But you do not know who you will be. You can decide what moral rules everyone (who is capable) should follow. What would you prefer: having to look for non-lethal ways to remove someone (a mole), or being crunched by a trap? Being killed by a gun, living longer but running the risk of being hit by a car, or having to drive more carefully in a car?
@fredzilla77 Is that so you can release it somewhere else and become someone else's problem! Tree hugger.
Complete moron...release it into the forest areas or such like!
You might appreciate my partiality in a bad situation. We all make decisions from internal priorities that you seek to flatten through insisting all life deserves equal consideration, from the microbe to the blue whale. Nonsense. All life deserves respect, but more complex life forms are more highly values, and humans are valued most highly of all simply because they are human - my extended tribe - because that is my larger drive to survive.
This killing this animal... that so stupid, killing without any reason, not better catch and take somewhere else like forest...
I would say we should treat those fish the same way as we would treat some humans with mental disabilities, who have equal levels of evidence for sentience: give them the benefit of the doubt. If humans would be able to react and respond like those fish, we would conclude that they are sentient.
Yes, I was for real. 1) Moles are sentient beings who have a well-being and can suffer. That is a scientific fact. And 2) we value the golden rule and impartiality. Combine these two to determine the ethics of mole traps. It is a matter of ethical consistency
Well, I hate arbitrary selections of in-groups. It is simply discrimination based on prejudice, like racism, sexism, etnocentrism...
video quality is terrible!
fish are a protein source, yes, but morally speaking not a good one, because plant-based protein sources better respect well-being and basic rights of sentient beings. Some humans are not sentient, indeed. But I prefer consistency in judgments: we would consider humans as being sentient when, in similar experiments, they can do no more and no less than those fish can.
You would agree that it is racist if someone would say "but more complex life forms are more highly values, and whites are valued most highly of all simply because they are white- my extended tribe" I simply replaced one biological category (species) by another (race), and note that complexity is not related to a biological category because some individuals of the category of humans, the mentally disabled, have lower complexity than others.
well, that's what we all prefer :-) And yes, I give lectures on animal rights ;-)
is it a good way to address the threat of those mentally disabled humans, by killing them using big human traps that work like mole traps? I'd say there are more ethical ways to address that threat to well-being.
Again, nonsense. Claiming that one race is inherently better is simple prejudice because it cannot be proven. You advocate valuing fish the same as a human - I reject that on multiple levels. You equate disabled humans with fish - I reject that, too. I'm beginning to think Europeans really are silly.
That is an inconsistent justification. The claim that if I don't kill you someone else happily will, is not a justification for me to kill you. Listen to what a judge would say to the killer. Predation is only allowed if it is necessary for survival. Killing moles is not necessary for our survival, so we are not allowed to be predators. It doesn't matter if it goes down the food chain, because it comes down to ethics.
Traps and mines are indiscriminate unless heavily specialized in some way. So let's assume you are carefully killing drivers in areas with large deer populations and I had the opportunity to stop you, I would.
I want a trap that doesnt kill the poor critter
get a life, what did mole ever do to u?
killing a mole is a violation of rights, and an unjust balancing of well-being. Follow the golden rule: One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated. Put yourself in the position of a mole being killed. In nearly all cases, that's far worse than a human suffering from the damage of mole activity. The huge loss of well-being of the mole cannot be justified by the small difference in well-being of the human.
@Robert Lane Being human is not relevant, just like being white, being male, being adult, being mammal, being primate,... are not relevant. The only thing that is relevant here is whether or not the victim, the mole, dislikes the mole trap experience.
@Robert Lane So someone may kill you and justify that by simply saying that the air says that your life and your feelings are irrelevant... No, it is not good to simply deny someone's value to life. Your lawn is not a sentient being, has not consciousness and does not have preferences, which means your lawn doesn't care about moles being present and doesn't make any choice that someone must go. Whether worms are sentient is uncertain, but I'm sure caring for worms is not your motivation to kill moles.
@Robert Lane What has that got to do with it? No, my home doesn't have rats, and I don't hug rats. It is simple: we should not kill others for trivial reasons. That doesn't mean you have to kiss others. Your response is similar to a racist murderer who argues: "I plead not guilty, your honor. Yes, I murdered those foreigners, but if you think that is not allowed, I'm sure you have a great home infested with immigrants that you hug and kiss."
@@stijnbruers You're stupid. You're comparing killing moles to racist murderers. What the heck is wrong with you. Get on some meds. Moles populate like rats. When you are infested with them, it's a huge problem. They will cause your driveway to sink in and even collapse. Being nice to rodents is plain weird and not very smart. My $20k driveway is not going to be sacrificed because you think moles are people.
@@robertlane721 Suppose there exists a human trap that works just like a mole trap to kill humans. It works like a kind of guillotine that crushes the body. And suppose a racist murderer uses such human traps to kill humans. At least one of the reasons why such a human trap is immoral, is that it causes great agony and unwanted death to its victim. You don't want to be captured in such a human trap. But this same reason exactly applies to mole traps as well: such traps cause great agony and unwanted death to its victims. That is why the comparison is valid. If you disagree, you have to argue why the comparison is invalid. The fact that moles populate like rats is irrelevant, because then that racist murderer could easily justify killing humans by saying that those foreigners populate like rats. I'm sure you can figure out better ways to protect your driveway. But if not: even if a foreigner destroys your $20k driveway, you are not allowed to apply a guillotine to him. The same goes for moles.
You mistakenly assume I accept that fish are sentient. Again, the "study" you refer to is agenda driven rather than scientific so i reject the conclusion. It may ultimately be proven correct, but that would be accidental; As it stands, it's bad science but since it has authority people will accept and repeat it. And it's frightening when that happens.
That is cruel man... Who are you to kill an animal just for doing what it was born to do? This is upsetting...
You knew when you came to this site what you would see, why this self destructive behavior. Please think of yourself and take better care of your mental health.
Would you slap a mosquito if it were biting you?
From this I can conclude that you are too partial. That is discrimination. And by the way, you do not show similar levels of partiality towards your own family against other humans. You are not a "familyist", nor a racist, but you are a speciesist if you have that level of partiality towards humans. I value consistency and non-arbitrariness. Picking the human species is like picking the population of whites, the order of primates, the class of mammals or whatever category: way too arbitrary.