MOLE hills have become mountains for Wooburn's Narkovian's Cricket Club and Wooburn Parish Council.

The hills have started appearing on the cricket ground in Wooburn Park, just off Town Lane, where they play and the moles are now destroying parts of the pitch.

Over the past few weeks they have become such a problem that the parish council plans to start exterminating the moles by planting mole traps in their tunnels.

Parish councillors decided traps were by far the safest for people using Wooburn Park to exercise dogs rather than poison or gas to kill the moles.

Cllr Roger Jackson said: "I think we should take the opportunity of trapping them.

"I am most concerned about the use of poisoned bait put down for any reason."

He added that poison could pose a threat to birds and other wildlife and said: "If dogs started to dig it up and sniff it or eat it that would be the end of the dog and people do walk their dogs in the park.

"The traps should be effective provided they are inspected on a regular basis. The moles are very destructive."

A representative of the cricket club contacted the council to help to smooth the hills over, he said.

Mole traps work by either trapping the mole in a wire mesh or catching the mole in a scissor action.

Death is instantaneous.

The traps would be buried in the ground so would not present a danger to people walking above them.

A spokesman for the animal charity, the RSPCA, said: "We would urge the council to look carefully at whether mole control is necessary. If it is, then non-lethal alternatives are available like repellent."

February 14, 2002 13:38