North America has about 40 species of gophers or “pocket gophers,” which are small, burrowing rodents that spend most of their time underground feasting on plant roots. These animals have a wide geographic range, but they’re particularly common in open, grassy areas in the Midwestern and Western states. However, gophers will sometimes crop up in gardens and yards, and can cause problems for gardeners and homeowners.
If you suspect that you’re dealing with a gopher problem, this guide is here to help. Below, you’ll learn how to determine if you’re dealing with gophers or another garden pest, plus eco-minded and actionable tips to help you prevent and treat gopher problems for good.
Gophers vs. Groundhogs, Voles, and Moles: What’s the Difference?
Gophers are often confused with groundhogs, but they are different animals.
While gophers and groundhogs are both burrowing rodents, usually with brown to grayish fur, gophers are much smaller and typically measure about 5 to 14 inches long. Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are larger and stockier animals that weigh in at around 14 pounds and measure about 25 inches long. Gophers also have cheek pouches, which they use to carry food and nesting materials around, while groundhogs are pouch-free.
Gophers can also sometimes be mistaken for moles and voles, but there are ways to tell these animals apart as well. Moles typically have darker fur and strange, star-shaped noses, which they use to detect insect movement underground. Moles create volcano-shaped mounds of dirt as they excavate their tunnels and, unlike gophers, moles are insectivores that don’t eat plants.
Voles, on the other hand, more closely resemble mice and they create shallow, spreading tunnels near the soil’s surface. Gophers and voles both eat plants, but gophers are particularly good at digging and they have much more prominent front paws that are especially well-suited for excavating.
Signs of Gopher Activity
If gophers have moved into your yard, you may never see them. Gophers are rarely spotted outside of their burrows as their eyes are quite sensitive to bright light. However, if you spot any of these signs in your yard or garden, you may be dealing with gophers:
- Tunnels and excavated dirt. You may see gopher tunnels running through your yard, but you’re even more likely to spot the piles of dirt that gophers leave behind when excavating their burrows. Dirt heaped in a horseshoe-like curve around a small, 2- to 3-inch burrow entrance is a clear sign that gophers have been at work. Gophers will often plug up their burrow entrance with dirt to keep predators out, so the actual tunnel entrance may be a depression in the earth, rather than a clear opening.
- Crop damage. When gophers are afoot, you may find rodent damage on vegetables, flowers, and bulbs, or your plants may be completely uprooted from the soil. Although gophers target a wide range of plants, they’re particularly fond of potatoes and sweet potatoes, dandelions, alfalfa, tree roots, and flower bulbs.
- Missing plants. If gopher damage is significant, plants may not regrow and you may end up with missing flower bulbs and crops. If you watch gophers at work, you can sometimes see plants disappear before your eyes as gophers tug the plants—leaves and all—straight down into their burrows.
How to Prevent and Get Rid of Gophers
Removing gophers is possible, but preventing pest problems from beginning is much easier for you, and safer for gophers too. Adding barriers and natural repellants to your yard is a great place to start and it can help you avoid costly pest control bills in the future.
Add Fencing
Like other burrowing animals, gophers can be hard to control with standard fencing. But if you bury fencing partially beneath the ground, you can prevent gophers from tunneling into your yard or garden.
For best results, bury ¼ to ½ inch hardware cloth so that 1 foot of the cloth is exposed above the soil line. The remaining 2 ½ feet of hardware cloth should be buried below the soil with the lowest 6 inches of the cloth angled outwards away from your garden to make it even harder for pest to dig in. Burying fencing to this depth will take some work, but it’s the best way to prevent gopher problems from occurring.
Install Other Barriers
If you live in an area with lots of gopher issues, you may want to invest in gopher mesh. This material can be buried under new lawn or sod installations to keep gophers from tunneling into grass lawns.
On a smaller scale, individual plants can be protected with “gopher baskets,” which come in different sizes and are made of study wire that keeps digging animals away from plant roots. If you’re on a budget, you can also make your own DIY gopher baskets out of hardware cloth, or grow prized plants in grow bags or other sturdy containers.
Try Natural Repellants
There are a number of natural repellant products that can be used to keep gophers at bay, but these products work best if they’re switched up from time to time so that gophers don’t get too comfy with them. You’ll also usually get better results if you combine repellent products with fencing and other natural control methods.
Garden centers sometimes sell dedicated gopher repellent sprays, but fish emulsion, blood meal, castor oil, hot peppers, and predator urine may also help repel gophers. Initially, apply repellent sprays close to your garden or home and then reapply the sprays further from your home every 2 to 3 days to usher gophers away from your property. Reapply sprays throughout the season and after heavy rains to keep them effective.
Aside from spray products, you can also experiment with ultrasonic gopher repellent stakes. These handy stakes are solar powered and emit low frequency sounds that gophers hate but humans can’t hear.
Grow Repellant Plants
Some plants entice gophers to visit gardens, while other plants naturally repel gophers and other pests away from flower and vegetable beds. If you want to keep gophers from visiting, try growing smelly plants like rosemary, lavender, marigolds, alliums, or gopher spurge as border plants around your garden, or experiment with plants that are naturally resistant to rodents, such as daffodils.
Attract Gopher Predators
Gophers play an important role in local ecosystems by aerating compact soils. But they also serve as prey for larger animals, like hawks, herons, foxes, coyotes, and owls. Adding an owl house to your property and reducing nighttime light pollution can make your yard more inviting to gopher predators, like owls.
Live Trapping
Trapping gophers can take some time and it is usually best to hire professionals to do the work for you. However, if you are determined to trap gophers on your own, you’ll need to locate the main gopher tunnel and place an appropriately sized, two-door live trap within the tunnel to capture gophers traveling in either direction. Bait the trap with veggies, fruit, or peanut butter and check the trap often so that any gophers you capture are not confined for long.
Always follow local rules and regulations when trapping and relocating gophers and never use poison baits, which can harm non-target animals like owls and pets. Wear gloves when handling traps and release gophers far from human habitation and any areas where you know gophers are already living, Gophers are highly territorial animals and they can fight to the death if you release gophers too close to each other.
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