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Scientific Moles Away from the Shadows


FALMOUTH, Maine – Groundhog Day may be a joke holiday, but it remains a day reserved for an animal in the United States: The largest and most widely distributed Marmota monax, found eating flowering plants – or this time of year at one time, by sneaking underground from Alabama to Alaska.

Yet for all their cultural significance, moles seem to be somewhat overshadowed. Relatively little is known about their social life. They are thought of as one-person, which is not entirely wrong, but not entirely right either.

“These guys are a lot more social than we thought,” said Christine Maher, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Southern Maine and one of several scientists who studies mole behavior.

Dr. Maher came to Maine with a keen interest in animal sociability. Marmots, a breed that encompasses 15 different sociability species, including alpine marmots, semi-social yellow-bellied marmots, and seemingly antisocial marmots, that live in multi-generational family groups, were a natural issue.

On the Falmouth coast, Maine, he found the ideal workspace at the Gilsland Farm Audubon Center, a retreat of 65 acres of rolling meadows and woods. There, he tagged at least 513 moles, tracing their destinies and relationships in fine detail.

The resulting family trees and regional maps are singular, with records of their interactions and daily activities. Dr. “No one had looked at them as individuals over time,” Maher said.

Gilsland’s moles won’t show up until late February, but one morning last summer, Dr. Maher set up live peanut butter-fed traps around a bush-hidden burrow next to the visitor centre. Peanut butter soon proved irresistible.

The trap provided a rare close-up view of the moles: flamboyantly robust, with small, serious eyes, delicate whiskers, and auburn fur on his broad chest, which shadowed the rest of his body to a mix of chestnut, straw, and cranberry. On a round ear was a small bronze tag with the number 580.

Naming each of his study topics, Dr. “This is the Torch,” Maher said. Torch became a mother for the first time. Dr. Maher deftly transferred it into a thick bag for safe weighing. He also took a hair sample for later DNA analysis and measured how curled Torch was at 30-second intervals—a simple personality test..

After returning Torch to his home, disturbed but unharmed, Dr. Maher started a tour in Gilsland. She checked several traps that were still empty for Barnadette, who was raising her pups under an old barn. Near the barn was a large community garden and smorgasbord of compost pile.

The arrangement created a certain tension, as anyone whose vegetable garden has been visited by moles can attest. Charles Kaufmann, one of the garden’s coordinators, acknowledged with the gardeners that conflicts did occur, but were resolved peacefully. Among the peacekeeping tools are overhanging fences that moles try to climb.

“Audubon is for the protection and appreciation of the natural world,” said Mr. Kaufman. “We feel we have to live within that perspective and philosophy.” Also, “mole moles are the cutest things in the world.”

On a freshly cut path from the gardens to the meadow, Dr. Maher saw a mole. Through its scope, it identified Athos, the one-year-old and brother of Porthos and Aramis.

He named them the Three Musketeers, which was a trick to help him remember them – but it was also convenient. A few days ago, he had observed them hanging out together in the nest where they were born.

Such interactions belittle the breed’s solitary reputation, and conventional wisdom says that baby moles leave the home in search of new territories just months after birth. In Gilsland, Dr. Maher discovered that roughly half of the youngsters stay in their birthplace for a year. When they eventually leave, they usually stay nearby.

Dr. “It depends on whether they can make a deal with their mother,” Maher said. “Some moms are willing to do that. Not the others.” Mothers can even leave land for their daughters. Dr. Maher suspected that Athos’ mother had abandoned Athos’ family nest.

As the moles mature, their interactions become less amicable – the Three Musketeers probably wouldn’t have sat together much longer – but they’re not entirely hostile either. Dr. Maher also found his moles more friendly to their relatives than unrelated ones.

The result is a collection of related moles whose regions overlap. Some individuals try to go further or come from afar, which helps keep the gene pool fresh – but a kinship-based structure remains. The moles of Gilsland Farm can be understood as living in something like a loosely knit clan, whose members keep their distance but still cross paths and maintain relationships.

Dr. “You have networks of all these sisters, aunts, cousins ​​living together,” Maher said. “It was implied, but I don’t think people know to what extent.”

Evolutionary biologist Daniel Blumstein, who conducted a longitudinal study of yellow-bellied marmots at the Rocky Mountain Biology Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Dr. social relationships.” “It allows us to appreciate more the nuanced complexity of less face-to-face social relationships,” he added.

An open question, Dr. Whether the patterns Maher saw at Gilsland Farm are common in other mole populations. Their behavior may vary depending on local conditions, he said.

The moles of Gilsland Farm live in what means an island of habitat; an impassable estuary to the west, a dangerous highway to the east. North and south are suburban neighborhoods rich in potential habitat but filled with undesirable homeowners. Dr. “They are seen as pests,” Maher said of the moles. “People don’t seem to think much of them.”

When young groundhogs leave Gilsland Farm, they tend to be crushed or hit. There are advantages to staying home as long as there is enough food. There are also mutual benefits to share: For example, an alarm whistle caused by an approaching fox will be heard by everyone nearby.

From a bird’s-eye view of evolution, moles that are somehow social spread more easily than those that live alone, and Dr. Maher thinks this actually represents a return to something akin to an ancestral state. Before European colonization, moles lived in clearings separated by difficult forests—created by fires, storms, beaver activities, and Indigenous practices.

“They were forced to live closer to each other, so they became more tolerant of each other and more social,” she said. “When Europeans cleared all this forest, they actually increased the amount of habitat available for moles. Maybe they became less socialized because they were able to spread out.”

Yet neighborhoods don’t have to be dangerous. Dr. Maher hopes that a deeper appreciation of mole sociability can help people feel more sympathetic to them and even graciously share the suburban landscape with them, as the Gilsland Farm gardeners do.

His work also intersects with some unscientific endeavors, such as his social media presence. Smash the Mole Amateur naturalists – followed by 500,000+ people on Instagram – and 15 years of backyard observations and unique candid accounts marmot wonderland.

“People often don’t have this insight into their way of life,” said John Griffin, director of Urban Wildlife Programs at the Humane Society of the United States. Mr. Griffin often encounters the feeling of a woodchuck as an intruder in his work. He thinks that lack of familiarity—although they are all ubiquitous, marmots are often only seen by the roadside or when lurking for cover—leads to intolerance or an exaggerated sense of risk.

Mr. Griffin said that appreciating that animals have social lives can change how they are perceived. “I don’t know how to measure it, but I think it’s valuable,” he said. “Conflict resolution is all about perspective.”

Tolerance benefits more than moles. Dr. Maher said their pickaxes help aerate and enrich the soil, and many other creatures use their burrows. Mole burrows can even create hot spots local biodiversity.

Athos, at the very least, would get rid of the suburban gloves. Dr. “The fact that he hasn’t left yet makes me think he’s staying here,” Maher said.

Athos moved slowly along the path, eating the clover and dandelions that would feed him for the next winter. He often stood on his two feet and looked around. Dr. Maher recorded his activities on a handheld computer.

When an oncoming pedestrian sends Athos off into the tall grass, Dr. Maher explained how the system works. “I just enter two-letter codes for their behavior,” he said. “Feeding. Walking. Stimulating. Working. Groom. Dig occasionally. They don’t have a large repertoire.”

He seemed somewhat conscious about it. He admitted that passersby sometimes amused themselves by spending so much time watching the seemingly boring creatures.

Athos turned to the road with a rustle. “Oh, here it is!” Dr. Maher exclaimed, the enthusiasm in his voice showing that he still found moles quite interesting after all these years.





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