Gopher Control & Removal Service

Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as “gophers”, are burrowing creatures belonging to the rodent family, scientific name Geomyidae.

These rodents reach reproductive age at about one year old and can live up to 3 years in the wild.

At less than 10 inches in length, a pocket gopher isn’t much to look at. But that little animal can have a big impact on your property.

Gophers are some of the most common rodents in North America. The pocket gopher lives throughout the Great Plains, American West, and Southwest.

They love to live in areas with loose, sandy soil that’s easy to dig through and plenty of edible plant cover.

They’re common in crop fields, golf courses, and residential lawns.

Gophers are voracious eaters, and they have many favorite foods. Some of their primary food sources include roots, tubers, and aboveground plants. Their teeth are adapted to grind woody vegetation, which makes these rodents capable of eating even the fast-growing roots of the quaking aspen tree.

Regarding behavior, pocket gophers are solitary rodents that only come together in the summer and spring to breed. Mothers have one litter per year in non-irrigated areas and up to three litters per year in irrigated areas. Females give birth in underground nests, where they rear their young for several weeks before sending them out on their own.

California pocket gophers are often confused with other similar-looking mammals, such as moles, ground squirrels, rats, or chipmunks. They look like a long-tailed beaver with their buckteeth.

Most gophers are between six and ten inches long, and they have small eyes and ears that are barely visible. They get their name from the external fur-lined pockets in their cheeks, which they use like grocery bags to carry roots and other vegetative food.

Gophers have large-clawed front paws and strong front legs designed for digging. Their bodies are covered in fine, short fur that repels wet soil.

Gophers also have four large front teeth and can close their lips behind their teeth to keep dirt out of their mouths, even while using their teeth to help tunnel into the earth. They use their sensitive facial whiskers to help navigate the dark tunnels underground.

In their natural ecosystem, pocket gophers are actually beneficial to the ecosystem. They help aerate the soil and provide critical habitat for other animals.

When their numbers get out of control, or they take over residential areas, though, gophers can be destructive, problematic pests that cause extensive damage.

Pocket gophers can damage your lawn, eat the vegetables in your garden, damage the roots of your trees and flowers, eat the plants in your landscaping, and leave large, ugly mounds of dirt everywhere.

This can lead to expensive lawn care and landscaping bills. If they create holes in large fields where kids play, it can lead to an injury. If they tunnel underneath a foundation, they can cause cracks to form.

As they burrow underground, gophers can gnaw through water, irrigation, and utility lines. Their extensive tunnel networks can divert irrigation water and lead to soil erosion, while the mounds they create in yards can make it difficult to mow or maintain the area.

They spread ticks, fleas and other parasites. They can spread diseases. The list of problems pocket gophers can cause is quite long.

Need help determining if you have a gopher infestation? Look for these telltale signs:

1. Mounds

Fresh mounds of soil can signify the presence of a gopher. Gophers dig tunnels and push the loosened dirt to the surface, leaving horseshoe-shaped mounds of dirt on the ground.

There are rarely any visible signs of the hole since the loosened dirt fills back in around the tunneling gopher.

Gophers rarely come out of their holes, so if you think you see one hanging out above ground, you probably have a ground squirrel rather than a gopher.

2. Vegetation damage

You’ll know you have gophers if you notice damage to your grass, trees, plants, and flowers in addition to the mounds of dirt.

Remember that gophers usually attack plants from underground, as they feed safely from their tunnels.

Because of this, you’ll want to look for signs like discolored or dying plants or sudden, unexplained loss of crops.

When gophers feed above ground, you may notice signs like girdling on trees and noticeable bite marks on your plants and vegetables.

3. Damage to utility lines

Water line damage can also signify a gopher infestation. Look for gnawed sprinkler heads or malfunctioning utility lines.

Remember that once a gopher has settled into their underground tunnels, they will live there permanently until you take steps to get rid of them.

Gophers create fan-shaped dirt mounds and eat plant roots.

Moles create raised ridges and feed on insects, not plants.

If plants are disappearing or dying from below, it’s almost always gophers.

There is really no way to keep gophers out of your yard, but there are a few ways you can prevent gophers from damaging the plants on your property.

If you’re able to put flowers and other plants in raised plant boxes, that can keep gophers from getting a meal. If you’re able to put fencing around your garden or sensitive landscape vegetation, you may be able to keep gophers out if you install it at least two and a half feet under the ground to prevent gophers from tunneling under.

But these and other preventative measures usually fall short because they are impractical. You want your landscaping and plants to be arranged the way you want them to be. You may want them to be planted in the soil around your perimeter and you may not want fencing around them.

Property owners often turn to general pest control companies for control of gopher pests and end up getting less than ideal results. This is because general pest control requires a different set of skills. A general pest control technician sees your yard as an ecosystem that needs to be controlled and they use pest control products to do it, products like poisoned baits. These just don’t work well with pocket gophers.

At Smith’s Pest Management, we specialize in the control of pocket gophers and we have developed methods that work to effectively control these and other ground-dwelling pests.

We start by discussing gopher control options and our pricing structure with you over the phone, so you know what you can expect when your trapper arrives.

Next, your property will be inspected by a trained and experienced trapper. The holes and damage on your property will be cataloged and assessed.

A small portion of tunnel holes will be exposed and traps will be placed inside. These traps will be protected by a cover and clearly marked.

A few days later, your trapper will check the traps and remove any gophers that are caught.

The trapper will return 3 to 5 times to make sure all gophers are removed from your property.
If requested, ongoing inspections and trapping services will be set in place to continue to protect you and your family and your property.

We know that trapping is not an ideal solution for some people or some situations. For this reason, we also use carbon monoxide for gopher removal. Carbon monoxide is heavier than air and it sinks down into deep tunnels and puts all the gophers into a deep sleep that they do not wake up from.

No.

Gophers establish tunnel systems and stay there.

Even if one leaves, another will move in, often from a nearby property.

Yes.

They stay active in all seasons.

You’ll usually see more surface activity in spring and fall, but they continue tunneling and feeding all year.

You can trap gophers yourself, but you need to find the right tunnel.

Most people set traps in shallow or inactive tunnels and never catch anything.

We use probing techniques and experience to locate the main runs where gophers actually travel.

In the Bay Area, gophers are drawn to well-watered lawns, landscaped yards, and garden beds.

Irrigation keeps the soil soft and easy to dig, while plant roots give them a steady food source year-round.

If you have healthy grass, regular watering, and active landscaping, your yard naturally becomes a prime spot for gophers to move in.

Many homeowners turn to repellents, noise devices, or store-bought bait, but these methods don’t solve the problem.

Repellents and sound devices don’t work, and gophers ignore low-grade bait because they have better food to eat.

You need to find the right tunnels, place traps correctly, and follow up consistently. That’s why many homeowners rely on a team that specializes in gopher control, like Smith’s.

Whether it’s plants, patios, pavers, or decks, gophers, moles, voles, ground squirrels and all their friends can quickly have you calling your landscaping pros to re-do it all over, typically this comes out to 25% of the original cost.

That’s where our Monthly Maintenance program provides 2 visits/month and we guarantee success in stopping these critters from destroying your landscaping investment. We take care of it all because they simply don’t magically disappear, they’re actually just busy having a party under your new pavers or decomposed granite. We preserve your outdoor landscape investment, preventing unwanted expenses from these pests’ damage.