Tell Me More About Gophers

Problems

Extensive burrowing, numerous mounds of excavated earth and plugging of burrow entrances with earth or grass are indicators of their presence and a source of concern to anyone trying to maintain a lawn with these animals in it.

Solutions

>Tolerance: Most people would not think to tolerate pocket gopher problems because of the logical concern that leaving them alone would lead to even more damage. For the homeowner and small-time gardener, pocket gophers may be an occasional nuisance and problem on the lawns, ornamental or garden beds, but not a long-term problem or threat. Where the animals are not so numerous as to be causing heavy damage, the homeowner should consider them as neutral.

>Exclusion: Fencing or other exclusion techniques can be expected to have only a limited applicability in controlling pocket gopher damage. Individual trees or plant beds that are of special value can be surrounded with hardware cloth or a plastic mesh that is no more than ½ inch. This must be buried at least a foot deep, and the effort required to do this, as well as the possibility of disturbing plant roots by digging, does not make this a particularly attractive solution.

>Habitat Management: Some success may be achieved in residential areas by heavily watering lawns periodically to create an unsuitable soil structure for burrow maintenance. As with any rodent problem, the tolerance and encouragement of natural predators leads ultimately to some of the best solutions. Artificial perches for raptors and tolerance of fox and even coyote presence can go a long way toward creating a predator-prey balance.

>Repellents: There are no repellents currently registered for use on pocket gophers, and home remedies that might work on other species are less likely to be usable for them because of the difficulty of reaching the animals underground.

Physical Appearance

Several kinds of burrowing rodents are sometimes called “gophers”, but we should avoid such loose talk and reserve the term for pocket gophers. Gophers are underground animals and are seldom seen. Mole-shaped, they are neck-less with tiny eyes and ear flaps, but their yellow-faced front teeth are unmistakable. These are remarkable and distinctive animals. Their pockets are external, fur-lined check-pouches that carry food and nesting material. Every part of Colorado has some kind of pocket gopher. The northern pocket gopher lives in the mountains and northwest, the valley pocket gopher inhabits southern and western valleys, the chestnut-faced pocket gopher is found in the southeast, and the plains pocket gopher, logically enough, lives on the plains. The animals vary widely in color, often matching the soil in which they live: dark in mountain meadows and ashy pale in the San Luis Valley. Size ranges from a diminutive gopher (less than 8 inches long and less than 4 ounces) in the sagebrush hills of Moffat County to a whopping 12 inches long and nearly 11 ounces in some plains pocket gophers.

Habitat

Gophers’ burrows are also distinctive. They usually are plugged (so the mound of excavated soil has no hole in it), and they are deep enough that a ridge of turf is not created. Northern and valley pocket gophers create solid ribbons or “garlands” of excavated soil beneath the snow, which are exposed with spring thaw. Burrows may be 200 yards long, produced by moving 4 tons of soil, in pursuit of a diet of mostly roots, tubers, and succulent stems under meadows, pastures, and hay lands. They can be a nuisance when they burrow through ditch banks or throw mounds in the path of a mower. They aerate the soil, however, and provide deep channels that conserve runoff.

Feeding Habits

Pocket gophers live almost entirely on plants. Much of their feeding occurs in tunnels, where they consume the roots of the plants they encounter. They will also feed on the surface, in brief bouts of activity right outside a tunnel exit. The roots of dandelion are an important food for pocket gophers, and the entire plant may be consumed when it can be pulled into the tunnel. Grasses and forbs (plants that die back in winter) make up the bulk of the diet, but many agricultural crops are readily consumed – especially alfalfa.

Mating & Breeding

Pocket gophers breed just once a year, in late winter or spring. They usually produce between 2 to 5 pink, blind, hairless young after a gestation period of perhaps 3 to 4 weeks.

Predators

Coyotes and badgers excavate and eat pocket gophers. Snakes and weasels are slim enough to follow them home, and spring floods kill nestlings. In their brief trips above ground, they can be caught by owls. A gopher that survives these perils may live five years.

Public Health

Pocket gophers are not implicated in the transmission of any serious zoonotic disease to humans.

- Information provided by the Colorado Division of Wildlife

- Information also provided by The Humane Society of the United States

Humane Society of U.S.| CO. Dept.of Health & Environment
Animal Control Home | Colorado Div. of Wildlife
Urban Wildlife Rescue | Table Mountain Animal Shelter