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ABOUT GOPHERS
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The Internet brought out many whom have plagiarized our published writings, documents, stories and content that we published 25 years and earlier. There are also individuals who are illegally using our business name specifically and in variation, deceiving and causing confusion, to make money off of our reputation, even using dangerous products we condemn for deaths of children, pets, wildlife and incredible damages. For them, it's all about the money, not you.
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Scientists have dated pocket gophers back 750 million years. It is documented that they have survived 5 ice ages. We know that pocket gophers will dig many tunnels, live in massive communities of many generations, working together, removing soil, eating, inbreeding and creating erosion, underground flooding, and sinkholes.
Imagine having no tools to kill these digging machines and your survival for you, your family and village depends on what you can grow. Pocket gophers can eat all plants, even toxic and the fabled gopher purge. They undermine, burrow, tunnel and den anywhere and pregnant females prefer being near water sources. Even if water enters their tunnels, the water won't reach the dens because for millions of years, these tunneling masters know how to design them against water. Instead the water is diverted away, causing erosion, sinkholes and major destruction.
Pocket gophers are born with teeth and claws, ready for digging and foraging. Within days of being born, they are already covered in fur, eating on their own and digging within the den. Once strong enough to climb out of the den, the young pocket gopher will start creating his own tunnels, foraging and searching out a mate.
These are unlike most animals. They plan, store food, design, clean and maintain, work together as a community and assist in the care of others. The have a warning system, when an invading predator enters a tunnel system, pocket gophers will fight together and attack the predator, most times a snake. While one or two pocket gophers are lost, the others will bite the offender in great numbers, until it escapes or dies. Most times, gophers will seal off the tunnel, creating a bond that will keep snakes from pushing through. The only way the snake can go is the way it came in. Their sense of smell is so keen, a pocket gopher can smell water through the soil, make it's way to the pipe and then chew through it, leaving a steady source of water. They can smell roots, plants and humans, without coming aboveground. Humans are literally walking on their ceilings so they know you're there.
IMPORTANT NOTICE!
The reason I am posting this information from decades of research is because of public safety! If the public isn't aware of how pocket gophers tunnel, those selling dangerous and deadly products, services and devices can injure or kill your family, animals, wildlife and cause serious damages.
There are too many individuals using poisonous and flammable gas on pocket gophers which is responsible for fires, structure damages, underground utility damages, poisonings of animals, humans and recently, two little girls in Utah. There are some who will sell anything to make an income, at whatever cost. Don't allow yourself to be taken advantage of. Pocket gophers are HERBIVORES - they will never eat any products the pest control industry, stores or manufacturing companies sell that is ingested. Poisonous and flammable gas is useless as the gophers seal off the tunnels in seconds and leave, only to return. To be able to eliminate your target, you must understand and know them. Pocket gophers are NOT mice or rats. These are highly intelligent wildlife that have been on this planet for millions of years, adapting, reproducing and destroying.
Pocket gophers have been tunneling and digging through many materials for millions of years. They know how to find the perfect den areas, plants, sweet roots and water through pipes. Pocket gophers are able to tunnel through all types of soil horizons; sandy, silty, clay, peaty, saline, loam and organic matter. Pocket gophers have many tunnels, even deep ones, were gophers will have to move or chip away at large rocks, the hardest ground, even concrete. Topsoil's and subsurface soils contain gravels, stone layers, and yet pocket gophers are still able to easily dig and tunnel through it. There are approximately 20 subsurface diagnostic horizons of soils and pocket gophers can go through, under, on top of, around or below it.
Here is a great example of the tunneling of a pocket gopher (keep in mind they have been around much longer than we have:
Let's say that before you purchased your home, before the property was cleared, back when it was either farmlands or natural, the pocket gophers were in there. Throughout time, earthquakes, erosion, water diversion and development will change the topography, the gophers remain, not much bothers them. Only if deep layers of earth are disturbed will pocket gophers move. Once it's quite, they will return again, bringing their young with them.
Gopher tunnels vary in depths and there is no standard for the lengths or depths. It's impossible to measure because they consistently intersect. Older documents wrote of tunnels filled with lye and photographed to see the distance. What it never did was go INSIDE the tunnels from all the gophers, essentially giving false data. Digging out tunnels doesn't get you far, especially when the secondary, third and any additional intersecting runs are missed. Gophers DO NOT surface only to run across the ground, then create a new tunneling system. Thy do aboveground to forage, warm up and like humans, need a break from the kids. One of our customers has a large gopher that piled so much soil between the wall and her shed, the gopher vertically scaled the wall and would sun herself on top of the roof. Can you imagine? Typically however, they live underground for the majority of their lives.
In Mammals of Arizona (one of the best wildlife books), by Donald F. Hoffmeister, (The University of Arizona Press and The Arizona Game and Fish Department) wrote about an experiment where white lye was poured inside the opened gopher tunnels. The images showed clearly of distances and how those tunnels intersect. What it didn't show is how adult reproductive males will spiral deep into the ground, create a breeding den, breed with a female for several days, then move on to another female. The female will then seal off the tunnel of the male until she is ready to breed again. If they had known this, all of the tunnels would have been interconnecting for untold distances. As the population grows, so do the tunnels.
I've requested permission to post the images and writings here, if granted, I will post immediately.
For the record, pocket gophers live in large communities, debunking so much bad information written, invented and misquoted that pocket gophers are loners, territorial, etc. Pocket gophers follow anything we place on or in the ground, and once gophers find water lines, you will have problems. Once they follow sewer lines under a home and underneath tubs, then you will have foundation, structure and vector borne disease problems.
The photo below is from a new customers home, the gophers had followed the sewer lines into the home. This pregnant female had easy access to forage these plants, pulling them down into the tunnel and den underneath the bathtub. From the materials in the mounds, it was clear this was not her first littler and she was quite large. She was expanding the den area and removing more construction material from underneath the home.
Gopher tunnels utilize roads, ditches, pipes, curbs, sidewalks, canals, walls and things sat on top or buried in the ground. They will always choose the path of least resistance and tunnel where the digging is easy. When populations get out of control, roads, landing strips, ditches, canals and highways will crack and fail, sinkholes can happen easily as soon as water finds those tunnels. When gophers tunneling at one elevation, then come out at the end of a field, hillside or road, the gopher will reverse, plug the hole, go deeper, skimming the surface of the material he is following, then coming up on the exact opposite side. You can see this often on roads and highways, ditches and landing strips, like below:
Inside the white rectangle, is the area we are focusing on. Thanks Google!
The movement of the pocket gophers are running back and forth underneath the runway. As the gophers remove the soil, the weight from the material above and aircraft will cause stress. Eventually, concrete will fail and need repaired, as this one has.
In this image, from the one side, there are hundreds of pocket gophers, tunneling underneath. They are intersecting with one another and to the left, the lower areas have a heavier population. Most times den and breeding dens will be closer to water sources. To the top right, it looks like a scar cut through tunnels. New activity after the damage is apparent my many mounds and materials left at the surface.
Pocket gophers are nearly everywhere on the planet. They may differ in color, markings, shape of their teeth, however, the damages they produce are all the same. Extensive.
While females are pregnant and relaxing, keeping their teeth sharp, dormant females will forage and feed her, clean her tunneling system. The males will come and go, tunnels intersecting, allowing the males easy breeding for many generations. Pocket gophers do inbreed and the regeneration of the young is frightening.
With the high rate of pregnancies, when you see the first signs of pocket gophers, immediately contact a trapper. Make sure to ask if they have been PRO-CERT Certified. You see, many do know how to trap pocket gophers but they don't know how to trap correctly. We do. It only takes one minor mistake and the gophers will be educated, costing you time and money. Make sure the trapper does it right, from the very start.
BEWARE OF THOSE PUSHING BAITS, POISONS, GAS, FLAMMABLES, NOISEMAKERS, FLARES, GUM, ETC.
While pest control operators and applicators study about insects and some rodentia, the majority know hardly anything about pocket gophers. Their products do nothing for pocket gophers! Just because a pocket gopher has fur and a tail doesn't make it a rat or mouse. Applications of products; deadly gas (responsible for accidental deaths, most recent two little girls in Utah), arsenic, strychnine or anticoagulants are useless with pocket gophers. Those baits are ignored and pushed above ground, where unintended victims may ingest and are poisoned. A terrible thing to watch is something dying from these types of poisoning; goats, horses, especially birds. Children an also ingest these deadly baits, many are brightly colored and could be mistaken by a young child as candy.
Pocket Gophers are Herbivores and will never go near any baits or poisons. These are dead and gophers will not eat them. When a pocket gopher approaches any baits, they quickly push it into dirt, then out aboveground where birds, livestock and young children can ingest. Birds are constantly killed by these products.
BEFORE you hire an Exterminator or buy any products, consider this - and explosive devices.
UNLESS YOU HAVE X-RAY VISION, you will never know where the gophers are traveling. If you have pocket gophers anywhere near your home, odds are that they are already underneath your home, including basements and pools. Water, gas, exploding devices, poisons, and especially water can travel through the tunnels, entering into yards and homes.
Imagine that you're a homeowner, you have no swimming pool, so you have no reason to not have your young children outside in the yard.
A pocket gopher next door in moving under your yard to another and is going to open up a hold to expel the dirt. In the dirt are deadly baits, the gopher push them up into your yard. These are brightly colored grains are bright pink, yellow or green.
This danger is incredibly real!
The Pest Control Industry needs to restrict these products from being used on Pocket Gophers! This is reckless and endangering the public.
Most "secondary kills" as the Pest Control Industry calls it are birds. We find countless dead birds, all types, hawks, owls, and even the sparrows. The birds eat the baits,, take flight, fall to the earth and die, where dogs, cats and wildlife then eat and die. People start accusing their neighbors of killing their dogs or cats, when it's someone recklessly using products intended for rats and mice.
Warning:
This entire site; images, content, verbiage, ideas and content and protected by copyright and any theft, unauthorized usage, copy and plagiarism is punishable by law. This web site, all content, ideas and information is copyright protected and is the property of The Gopher Getters and Owners.
PUBLIC NOTICE AND LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
There are individuals in many locations illegally using our trademark deliberately misleading the public and committing fraud. If you are contacted or make contact with anyone who is using the name Gopher Getter in any form or variation, please contact our office with their contact information. We are actively pursuing each of these individuals. Please realize that these individuals are intentionally creating advertising, web pages and marketing materials using our graphics, verbiage and name. Our company has never used any chemicals, poisons, baits, gas, explosive devices, noisemakers, gum, water or other useless products. The Gopher Getters is a Woman-Owned Company, the Owner is Sandra Seino and everyone associated with this company will carry certification. BUYER BEWARE! You will NOT have our Guarantee, Results or Knowledge when going through others.
