A better way to kill moles and gophers?

[Habitect]

I live on a rural property in NW Oregon with about 1.5 acres of grass fields. I've had quite the recurring nightmare of dealing with gopher and mole mounds. I've tried multiple traps and some repellants. At this point I'm paying a trapping company, which is expensive and slow (they only come around once a week).

I have a new idea though! I'm building AI (computer vision) to identify mole and gopher activity in real-time. I figure, if I get an alert (text message) with a highlighted screenshot as soon as a new mound is being created, I can take my gun out there and shoot the bugger immediately.

This way I won't have to dig through the dirt to set and reset traps, and I don't have to sit in the field all afternoon with my gun waiting to see activity.

I'm thinking about offering this to other people to use too - check out moleshot.com if you want to see more details or get early access once it's working. (Moderators, feel free to remove that link if it's not OK to post it)

What do ya'll think, is this a good idea or am I crazy?

 

[MossRoad]

You shouldn't trap mole hills. You need to trap the active tunnels.

Learning to use your traps properly is the key.

Which trap(s) are you using?

 

[MTGreen]

I think you'll find that the shootable time window they spend above ground is a lot less than you might think. Suggest using proven methods like plowing in poison pellets, scissor traps, or gas

 

[MossRoad]

If there are holes, it's not moles. If there are holes, it's probably just gophers. We have no gopher issues here, so no help with that.

 

[Habitect]

You shouldn't trap mole hills. You need to trap the active tunnels.

Learning to use your traps properly is the key.

Which trap(s) are you using?

I know I at least tried GopherHawk (which I had some success with) and something like the Victor EasySet ones.

 

[Habitect]

I think you'll find that the shootable time window they spend above ground is a lot less than you might think. Suggest using proven methods like plowing in poison pellets, scissor traps, or gas

Hmm, that could be an issue I'll have to explore.

I don't want to use poison since I don't want to potentially harm predators that would eat them.

Have you had success with gas?

 

[jyoutz]

Hmm, that could be an issue I'll have to explore.

I don't want to use poison since I don't want to potentially harm predators that would eat them.

Have you had success with gas?

It’s unlikely that predators will eat the dead rodents since poisoned gophers die underground.

 

[Egon]

Hmm, that could be an issue I'll have to explore.

I don't want to use poison since I don't want to potentially harm predators that would eat them.

Have you had success with gas?

Propane in the tunnels and a match work.

 

[MossRoad]

Propane in the tunnels and a match work.

Hold my beer and watch this...

 

[scootr]