GOPHERS

GOPHER

Pocket gophers are burrowing rodents, named “pocket” because they have furlined pouches outside of their mouth, one on each side of the face. These pockets are used for carrying food. Pocket gophers range from about 5 to nearly 14 inches long. Adult males are larger than adult females. Their fur is very fine, soft, and highly variable in color, which ranges from nearly black to pale brown to almost white. Pocket gophers have a short neck and are powerfully built in the forequarters. The forepaws are large-clawed and they also have large incisors to provide excellent gnawing and digging behavior. Gophers have small external ears and small eyes.

They thrive in looser, fairly deep, light-textured soils with good herbage production, especially when that vegetation has large, fleshy roots, bulbs, or tubers. Fields, parks and lawns make great habitats. Pocket gophers are strict herbivores, eating roots, grasses, shrubs, and trees. They feed on plants in three ways: 1) they feed on roots that they encounter when digging; 2) occasionally they go to the surface, venturing only a short body length or so from their tunnel opening to feed on above ground vegetation; and 3) they pull vegetation into their tunnel from below.

Burrows are made up of a main tunnel, generally 4 to 18 inches long below and parallel to the ground surface, with various numbers of lateral tunnels from the main one. These end at the surface with a soil mound or sometimes only a soil plug. There are also deeper branches off the main burrow that are used as nests and food caches. The maximum depth of some portions of a burrow may be as much as 5 or 6 feet. The diameter of a burrow is typically 3 inches. A single burrow system may contain up to 200 yards of tunnels. Typically, there is only one gopher per burrow system, except when mating occurs and when the female is caring for her young.

Damage caused by gophers includes consumption of vegetation, destruction of underground utility cables and irrigation pipe, and smothering of surface greenery by dirt mounds. Gophers damage trees by stem girdling and clipping, root pruning, and root exposure caused by burrowing. Soil brought to the surface in mounds becomes more susceptible to erosion. Gophers are a neighborhood problem, as old tunnels will be taken over by new gophers from adjacent areas.

Life Cycle
Pocket gophers reach sexual maturity in the spring following their birth. In the northern part of their range they have 1 litter per year. In the southern part they may have 2 litters per year. Litter sizes range from 1 to 10 but typically average 3 to 4. Average life span of gophers varies from just over 1 year to nearly 3 years.