What Eats Moles?

What Eats Moles in Western Washington?

The practical list for Puget Sound properties:

**Owls.** Great horned owls and barred owls are the primary avian mole predators in the PNW. Both species hunt at dusk and through the night — exactly when moles are most likely to be at or near the surface pushing mounds. A great horned owl can take a Townsend's mole easily, and owl pellets from these species regularly contain mole bones.

**Raptors.** Red-tailed hawks and Cooper's hawks take moles opportunistically when they spot one on the surface. Less predictable than owls because surface emergence during daylight is rarer.

**Coyotes.** Western Washington has a substantial coyote population — including in dense suburbs — and coyotes eat moles when they find them. Dawn and dusk hunting along greenbelt edges is when coyotes most often catch moles.

**Bobcats and foxes.** Less common in most suburbs but present near forested edges and rural-urban interfaces. Both will take moles.

**Domestic cats.** Outdoor cats occasionally catch moles that surface. This is the predator most homeowners actually observe directly — the cat carrying home a mole is a familiar scene in Sammamish, Issaquah, Bellevue, and everywhere else with yards that back onto cat-reachable ground.

**Snakes.** Garter snakes will take small mammals including moles, but Western WA snake populations are too sparse in most residential areas to have measurable impact on mole numbers.

Why Doesn't Natural Predation Solve Yard-Level Mole Problems?

Three reasons.

First, **moles spend almost all their time underground.** An owl can only catch a mole that surfaces. Across a Townsend's mole's 6-cycle, 24-hour day, the mole might spend a few minutes above ground total — pushing a mound out of a shaft. That's a very narrow window for a predator to hit.

Second, **residential areas have lower predator density than nature needs.** Owls, coyotes, and bobcats exist in suburban PNW but not in the concentrations you find in less developed landscapes. A single-family lot might see a coyote pass through once a month — nowhere near the pressure needed to meaningfully reduce mole numbers.

Third, **one predation event doesn't solve the problem.** If a coyote takes your resident mole tomorrow, a dispersing juvenile moves in next week. The tunnels are still there; the worms are still there; the habitat is still attractive. The next mole arrives and you're back where you started. See Why Moles Keep Coming Back for the full recolonization dynamic.

Should You Encourage Predators to Help with Mole Control?

Low yield for the effort, but small benefits.

You can attract more owls to a property by installing owl boxes (great horned and barn owls use them), avoiding rodent poison (secondary poisoning is a major cause of raptor mortality), and preserving snag trees as perching sites. Coyote and bobcat activity depends on regional landscape, not anything a single homeowner does.

Realistically: owl boxes are a good conservation move and produce occasional mole predation, but don't expect them to handle a Yard Has Moles problem. For that, physical removal is the only reliable path. See One-Time Mole Removal or the Total Mole Control Program for the methods that actually work at yard scale.

What About Domestic Cats — Are They Effective Mole Hunters?

Opportunistically yes, consistently no.

An outdoor cat will catch and sometimes eat a mole that surfaces. Most cats in Western WA kill moles without eating them — the mole gets left on the doorstep as a trophy. Either way, one mole fewer in the yard.

The limits: cats can't reach moles underground. They catch surface-emerging moles, not tunnel-dwelling ones. And cats present a set of other problems — songbird predation (ecologically significant), cat-on-mole parasite transfer (fleas and ticks), and the welfare question of allowing a cat to roam outdoors in coyote country.

For a homeowner with existing outdoor cats, the occasional mole catch is a minor bonus. For a homeowner without cats, getting a cat primarily for mole control is not the right tool. Trap the mole directly.

Are Moles a Key Food Source for Washington Wildlife?

Minor supplement, not a major staple.

For the main Western Washington predators — coyotes, bobcats, great horned owls — moles are maybe 5-15% of their diet depending on the season. Rabbits, voles, rats, squirrels, and birds are more common prey because they're more available at the surface. Moles are a bonus meal when the predator gets lucky, not a dependency.

Which means removing moles from a single yard — which Got Moles does with our chemical-free physical trapping, safe for pets and kids — has zero measurable impact on local predator populations. The ecosystem runs on the rabbits and voles. The moles are just a small part of the catch that happens to end up in pellets. Safe to remove from your yard without ecological guilt.

Secondary Poisoning: Why Predator Choice Matters if You Use Rodenticides

One place mole predation intersects with real risk: if a property uses rodenticides anywhere for rats or other pests, moles become a vector for secondary poisoning.

Here's the pathway. A rat or vole eats a rodenticide bait (common PNW examples: bromadiolone, brodifacoum, difethialone — all anticoagulant rodenticides sold in hardware stores). The rodent dies slowly over several days, during which time it may be caught by a bobcat, coyote, owl, hawk, or fox. The predator then accumulates the rodenticide in its own tissues. Moles themselves rarely eat rodent baits (moles are insectivores, they don't touch grain-based baits), but a mole can carry the poison load secondarily if it eats earthworms or invertebrates that have been exposed to contaminated soil or tissue.

Dogs eating dead moles or voles is the most common secondary-poisoning risk in suburban Western Washington. It's why Got Moles uses exclusively chemical-free physical trapping — the dead mole we retrieve carries no residues, and no bait stations are left on the property to attract other animals. If you're combining any form of rat poison with mole control, stop. Chemical-free mole trapping combined with rodent-exclusion methods (rather than poisons) keeps the predator chain intact.

For more on the pet-safety angle, see Mole Control Safe for Pets.

Got Moles Serves Western Washington

Got Moles is a mole-only specialist covering King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Thurston counties — the heart of Western Washington. We've trapped moles on nearly 5,000 properties since 2017, chemical-free, with 219+ five-star Google reviews across three local offices.

Local service areas include mole control in Burien, Auburn mole removal, and mole control near Kirkland — plus every neighboring city on our service areas map.

If moles have moved into your yard, the fastest path to a solved problem is our Total Mole Control Program or a direct conversation: call (253) 750-0211 or use our contact form.