Last fall I wrote about my great economics experiment with the moles who have decided to make my back yard their home. Not wanting to harm the innocent little critters, I bought a 'sonic-stick' that buzzes and vibrates and is supposed to make life less comfortable for them. (I also refrained from the mole-o-nomics bit, but I have less shame now)
From an economics perspective it made sense: increase slightly the marginal cost of inhabiting my yard and the moles will chose a more peaceful life in my neighbor's ground. And any good economist starts with good theory...
Alas, it was too good to be true (as I suspected - a good economic naturalist knows that if this were such a winning technology there would not be all of the poisons and traps still available on the store shelf). But the moles goes away in the winter and I thought that perhaps if the annoying buzzing wasn't enough to make them move away, perhaps it was enough to keep them from coming back.
Alas, no. Witness my yard yesterday (pictured above). To add insult to injury this new mole volcano is about two feet from the stick itself (visible in the picture above just above the volcano) - it is not even keeping them at a distance! The only conclusion is that they could care less about the buzzing.
In a way it is a relief, the buzzing might not be annoying to them but it sure is to me! Now I can have a peaceful summer in my backyard undisturbed by intermittent buzzing. Of course, I also have to move on to more draconian measures of mole control.
As an aside, when the Leverage crew moved in to film a scene in my back yard, the sound guy came up to me and said "I am picking up some kind of barely audible buzzing, do you know what that could be?" The mole stick strikes again...
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