Controlling or Enjoying Pocket Gophers

By: Jeff McMullan

Fort Bend County Master Gardener

 

Pocket gophers are subterranean creatures that are seldom seen.  They are solitary animals whose burrow system can be very extensive and readily apparent from the mounds of excavated soil ejected to the surface.  One partially mapped gopher’s burrow was over 100 feet long with numerous interconnected chambers and eleven mounds of soil on the surface.  Though generally considered beneficial, pocket gophers in the landscape can be both unsightly and destructive.  While their subterranean burrowing aerates and loosens the soil and helps capture rainfall, the mounds left behind are unsightly and holes can be dangerous to mowing equipment, people, pets, and livestock.  The family dog can almost destroy the lawn in a determined effort to reach the animal in its burrow.  In addition, pocket gophers are herbivores (plant eaters) and can damage plantings as they  forage beneath the ground.  Their usual fare is plant roots and tubers but sometimes they will cut off the stems and pull plants down into their burrow from below.  Food stores are kept in burrow chambers to be eaten later. 

 

Once knowledgeable of this little critter, you may conclude that problems with gophers don’t really justify their extermination.  Nonetheless, quick and effective control is easy and inexpensive.

 

 

 

Pocket gophers are unique to North America.  They are characterized by fur lined cheek pouches that extend as far back as their shoulders.  The “pockets” are stuffed with food (or grasses for bedding material) gathered as the animal forages.  When it returns to the storage or nesting chamber in its burrow, the pouches are emptied by pushing their contents forward with both forepaws.  The gopher turns the pouches inside-out and carefully cleans up before pulling them back in to place.

 

Pocket gophers live in burrows that are 4 to 8 inches below the soil surface.  They are highly specialized rodents that are well equipped for their below ground existence.  Though generally rat like in appearance, they have massive shoulders, narrow hips, and a tail that is nearly hairless.  They tunnel through the soil using their large yellow incisors (front teeth) and specially adapted claws on their sturdy forepaws.  The lips close tightly behind the incisors to keep dirt out so the big yellow teeth are always on display.  The hind feet push back the dirt as it accumulates under the animals body.  Its fur can lay either forward or backward so as not to inhibit travel in either direction.  It has small eyes and small external ears and is highly sensitive to touch and feel as well as to sound and vibrations.

 

The Plains Pocket Gopher is the species that is native to our area, though all of the pocket gopher species are very similar in appearance and habits.  Our gophers are distinguished by two prominent longitudinal grooves in their incisors.  Mature animals are 8” to 10” long, including its 2” long tail.  Adult male Plains Pocket Gophers are much larger than the females.  Their color can be light brown to almost black as an adaptation to the color of the soil where they live.  Their preferred habitat is prairie areas with well drained sandy loam or loam soils, in pastures, lawns, or sometimes plowed ground.  Expansion of their range is limited to suitable soils.  The ranges of different pocket gopher species do not overlap as they are separated by wide barriers of unfavorable habitat.  Likewise, large areas of suitable soils may have no gophers at all due to these barriers.  Small isolated populations are also known to exist.

 

Many products are sold that are intended to repel or poison pocket gophers that are a nuisance.  Nonetheless, many homeowners reach their wits end trying to eliminate the pesky burrowers in their landscape.  If one has decided that this little animal must be controlled, consider this advice given to one homeowner by a Fort Bend Master Gardener.  His pocket gopher problem was solved in a few hours, after nine months of frustration reminiscent of Bill Murray’s “Caddy Shack”.

 

 

First, one should confirm the identity of his foe.  Ridges on the surface from subterranean burrowing is almost always the work of  moles.  Moles are much smaller than gophers.  Their tunnels are just below the surface and are easily collapsed under foot.  The mole is an insectivore; he is searching for worms and grubs among the roots of grasses.  Gophers tunnel deeper in search of roots and tubers so there is little surface indication of their tunnels.  Both gophers and moles make piles of soil as they excavate their subterranean chambers.  The mole’s tunnel to the surface to dispose of excavated soil is usually almost vertical and the results look something like a miniature volcano.  The pocket gopher surfaces at an angle from its horizontal burrow below and spreads a much larger pile of dirt to the rear and off to the sides of its tunnel.  In the absence of visible ridges on the surface, piles of dirt are most likely the work of a pocket gopher.  If you uncover a horizontal burrow 6 inches or so below the surface, it is a certain sign of the pocket gopher’s presence.  At first glance, a gopher’s dirt pile might appear to be the mound of red imported fire ants.  The absence of the stinging insects should be apparent!

 

 

The gopher mounds dirt on the surface along its path of travel.  The freshest digging indicates the direction in which it’s headed.  Study the freshest mound; it often has a fan or heart-like shape, revealing the gopher’s tendency to eject soil laterally off to the sides and to the rear of its burrow.

 

 

 

 

Take your first shovel full of soil from the middle of the mound back toward the source.  Sometimes it may require considerable digging to locate his burrow; probing the ground with a long thin screwdriver sometimes helps.  His opening to the surface will be tightly filled with soil if he has completed his digging; sometimes this plug of disturbed soil is the first clue to the location of his main burrow. 

 

You’ll soon find a 2 1/2” diameter tunnel.  Most often your excavation will have two openings entering it.  That is why you should have two traps since the gopher has retreated into one hole or the other and there is no way to tell which one.  It may be a good idea to wire the two traps together or to a stake in case the gopher is able to pull the trap back into his burrow after he has been snared.  As  soon as the commotion caused by your digging has stopped, the gopher will sense fresh air and know that his burrow has been opened to the surface.  Fearful of snakes or other predators or flooding caused by rainfall, the gopher hurries back to repair the damage you’ve done.  Often the animal is caught within 30 minutes or so.

 

 

Open the tunnel with a small garden trowel to make room for the Victor Gopher Trap that you will place in the open burrow.  These traps are available for a few dollars at hardware or feed stores. 

 

 

Carefully fold the trap’s wire arms open and set the wire trigger with the flat plate in a vertical position.

 

 

 

 

Carefully insert armed traps in each tunnel with the trigger plate back toward the opening you’ve made. 

 

 

 

Here is the real secret to successfully trapping pocket gophers:  insert a 4” long section of paper tube (or a soup can with both ends removed) to make it appear to the animal that the tunnel opening is beyond the trap.  Without the paper tubes, the gopher will likely just bury your traps in the soil used to close the opening.

 

 

Sprinkle loose dirt around the tubes to close any openings at the side.  Leave the area undisturbed so that the gopher will return.  Often it is only a matter of minutes before the trap is sprung.  If the trap is not fatal, a sharp blow to the head with the garden trowel will humanely dispatch the animal and he can be buried as you refill your hole. 

 

 

If the gopher manages to somehow close off his tunnel without being caught, merely open the tunnel back up and reset the trap.  Since gophers are solitary creatures, catching a single animal will often eliminate the problem.  If you are dealing more than a single gopher, it is sometimes quicker to open several mounds while you are waiting for your first set of traps to be sprung.  After catching your first animal, go back to the other mounds and set only one trap after reopening the gopher’s tunnel.