Voles are becoming an emerging new pest for city workers in Kamloops who maintain the Hillside Cemetery grounds.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A rash of four-legged gravediggers have been digging around headstones and eating vegetation at a Kamloops cemetery.

Voles are digging around graves and leaving dirt mounds that obstruct headstones, according to a report sent to a civic operations committee meeting, Sept. 27.

The rodent has become a new, "emerging" issue for city workers at cemeteries, according to Allan Michener, environmental services supervisor for the city.

"We've known about geese and marmot challenges in green spaces," Michener said. "One of my counterparts in the parks indicated they were seeing something new and that's voles at Hillside."

Michener said the voles have not been "overly destructive," but they pose a challenge for city workers as they do landscaping work around the graves.

Out of respect, city workers do their best to keep cemeteries in "pristine condition," Michener said.

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Voles, a small rodent often mistaken for mice, are herbivores and are known to live throughout Canada. They are known to dig shallow tunnels, leaving evidence of their presence on the topsoil.

According to B.C. SPCA, their populations can fluctuate, but voles are known to reproduce in large numbers. One mother meadow vole can have up to 13 litters in a breeding season, with up to 11 offspring each.

Michener said there is no current empirical data to count how many voles there are at Hillside Cemetery. The evidence is observational and comes from city staff who work at the cemetery.

City staff are concerned that the voles could spread to other cemeteries or areas of the city if not managed.

The rodent is just one of a few animals posing a concern, which is why the report to the civic operations committee proposes a "proactive" urban wildlife management strategy, according to Michener.

"A lot of approaches we've taken have been reactionary," Michener said of the wildlife management tactics used in the past and currently.

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Other wildlife proving to be ongoing issues for Kamloops include geese, bears, marmots and rattlesnakes, according to the report written by environmental services coordinator Ken Davis.

Geese, for example, are commonly chased from larger parks in Kamloops like McArthur Island Park, rather than being culled.

While it works as a temporary solution, Michener said chasing geese works as a temporary solution, but then they will fly to other areas around the city like private property or other parks.

While there aren't many examples in the report to explain what a proactive approach toward wildlife management would look like compared to what is done now, Michener said one approach could be egg addling for Canada geese.

Egg addling, which terminates the embryo while leaving the egg in its nest, can be done through multiple methods. One way is by removing eggs temporarily then shaking them to terminate the embryo.

As for the voles, city staff continue to maintain landscaping at local cemeteries to maintain both vegetation and deal with dirt mounds left at headstones, and they hire pest control contractors to deal with the rodents on an as-needed basis.

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