Pest control expert finds second rare albino mole weeks after finding the first

Pest control expert finds second rare albino mole weeks after finding the first

2:04pm Thursday 2nd January 2014 in News

A MOLE catcher who trapped a rare white mole at the beginning of last month was amazed when he caught another on the same land just weeks later.

Mark Horsfall, from Catterick Village, found his first albino mole on a farm in Coverdale and said he intended to send it to a taxidermist and keep it as a memento.

He said although he had not been in the trade for very long, he knew others who had never seen one in 25 years of mole catching.

But now Mr Horsfall, who runs M.D Pest Services, has found a second albino mole just a mile from where he discovered the first on New Years Eve.

He said: I was trapping new land near the main farm as I'd started to notice mole activity in a few of these fields. With all the rain we've been having, the ground was completely waterlogged many of the fields in the Yorkshire Dales are very wet at the minute.

But moles will happily travel through runs that have water in them they are competent swimmers down to their ability to use their nose as a snorkel.

He added that moles are more visibly active during the wetter, winter months because their main food source is the earthworm, which are closer to the surface where the ground is wetter. Mr Horsfall said he is as yet undecided on what to do with the latest albino mole.

It is currently in my freezer with his comrade, but I may have it mounted and if a museum is interested in it thats probably the route I will go down, he said.

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Pest control expert finds second rare albino mole weeks after finding the first