Gophers

Posted in Featured, Rodents

Because they have fur-lined pouches in their cheeks that they use for carrying food, the name “pocket” gopher is key to these animals name. The pouch is to carry food back to storage chambers and not used to carry dirt.  They use their legs and teeth to create their tunnels, and then push the excess dirt to the surface.  This creates the characteristic mound you will find in your landscaping.

Rodents other than gophers will burrow in the soil.  To avoid confusion here are some characteristics:

• Gophers – dirt mound is “horseshoe” shaped, and on the inside of this horseshoe arc there will be a small “plug” of dirt about 2 to 3 inches across. This  “plug” is where you can find the entrance to the gophers burrow.
• Moles – evidence usually is surface tubes or tunnels created by the foraging mole.
• Norway Rats – an open hole with well defined paths leading away from it.
• Ground squirrels – very large opening with dirt spilled out below it.

Gophers are rodents, and there are over 100 varieties in the United States.  They have long, hard front incisor teeth, tiny ears and eyes, and short tails that act as “feelers” when the gopher moves backward through its burrow.  Gophers are solitary animals, and there is never more than one adult living and working in a tunnel system at a time.  During breeding season males will be allowed to enter a  burrow occupied by a female, and the baby gophers are evicted when they enough fend for their themselves.

Gophers are vegetarians and live almost entirely underground, feeding on roots of grass, landscape plants or trees.  They may even chew on the lower trunks of small trees, killing the tree. They will appear above ground for brief periods of time to gather plant material that is stored in a food caches below ground.

Gophers do not hibernate, but are active year around.  Even when the ground is covered with snow the gophers will tunnel at the surface of the soil, leaving mounds of dirt at the tunnel openings.  These surface mounds can be seen after the snow melts in spring.  In warmer weather, the main tunnels stay around 4 to 8 inches below the surface, and may include over 800 feet of tunnels for a single gopher.  Small side chambers are created for their nest area, food caches, and for depositing their feces.

The mound is created when the gopher pushes the dirt out of the chambers it is digging, and it digs a lateral tunnel to the surface and then pushes the dirt away from the opening, creating the arc or semi-circle around the opening. A fresh plug of dirt then is placed in the opening to close it off. The gopher may remove this plug at night and feed carefully at the soil surface, and then replace the plug when it crawls back underground.

People who have done a lot of gopher control know these are intelligent animals that are not easily fooled. You might get lucky, you can chase it to the surface by flooding its burrow then success might be in the works for you. Some people claim good results from using the gas cartridges, but overall these methods are not particularly effective.

Remember that because you have eliminated gophers from your property does not mean that new ones won’t move in very quickly. They are territorial, and once some ground is rendered free and clear of the competition new gophers may take over the vacated area, even moving into the burrow system. Gopher control often needs to be an ongoing process if your landscaping is to survive.