Pocket gophers are specialized, burrowing rodents that quickly turn a yard or garden into a network of tunnels and horseshoe-shaped dirt mounds. These solitary mammals are herbivores constantly seeking subterranean food, making a well-maintained landscape a prime target. Understanding the specific environmental and dietary factors that draw these animals in is the first step toward effective management. Gophers indicate that a yard provides the ideal combination of easy-to-access resources and suitable physical conditions for their underground survival.
Primary Food Sources
The primary reason a gopher establishes a territory is the abundant availability of food, consisting almost entirely of plant roots and subterranean storage structures. Gophers are herbivores with a distinct preference for high-calorie, high-moisture underground plant parts. They constantly forage for new root material, treating a dense lawn or garden as an underground buffet.
Lawn and turf grasses provide a constant and easily accessible food source for gophers. The dense, fibrous root systems of grasses like fescue and bluegrass are frequently consumed from below as the gopher tunnels through the soil. This root damage often goes unnoticed until the turf begins to yellow or die in irregular patches above the burrow system.
Ornamental plants and bulbs are a major attraction, particularly those that store energy in fleshy underground structures. Garden vegetables offer the most concentrated food source, primarily in the form of root crops. Gophers target nutrient-dense plants that provide maximum nutrition for minimal effort, including:
- Bulbs such as tulips, lilies, and irises.
- Weeds with thick taproots, like dandelions and alfalfa.
- Root crops, including carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beets.
These plants are targeted because their soft, starchy, and water-rich flesh provides maximum nutrition. Gophers will often pull entire plants, including the stems and leaves, down into their tunnels to be eaten in safety.
Ideal Soil and Habitat Conditions
Beyond food, a yard must possess the right physical characteristics to make the energetic cost of digging worthwhile. The composition and texture of the soil are the most significant factors determining if a location is suitable for building complex tunnel systems. Gophers actively select for deep, loose, and well-drained soils, such as sandy or loamy varieties, because these are much easier to excavate than heavy, dense substrates.
Soil texture is so important that gophers avoid areas where the clay content exceeds 30%, as this compact material requires more energy to move. The ease of tunneling allows the gopher to construct a vast network, often covering between 200 and 2,000 square feet, which is necessary for foraging and shelter. This underground space must also be free of major obstructions like deep concrete foundations or large rock formations.
Moisture levels in the soil also play a direct role in attraction, as consistently watered yards create optimal digging conditions. Yards that receive deep, regular irrigation or are subject to overwatering become a paradise for gophers because the softer, damp soil requires less muscular effort to move. The presence of water also ensures roots are more succulent and easier to chew, increasing the overall foraging efficiency.
A yard’s design can also inadvertently provide safety from predators, making it more appealing. Overgrown areas, dense shrubbery, or thick ground cover offer overhead protection from raptors and other natural enemies. These secure conditions allow gophers to safely push their excavated soil to the surface, creating the noticeable fan- or horseshoe-shaped mounds that signal their presence.
Mitigating Attractions Through Exclusion
Addressing a gopher problem requires modifying the environment to remove the attractions that drew the animal in. One effective strategy is physical food protection, which directly counters the attraction of readily available roots and bulbs. Individual valuable plants, especially new plantings and ornamental bulbs, should be placed within gopher baskets.
These protective barriers are typically constructed from galvanized or stainless steel wire mesh, ideally with openings no larger than three-quarters of an inch. For permanent plantings like trees, the wire mesh should be large enough to accommodate years of root growth before the material eventually degrades. Creating a physical barrier around the roots prevents the gopher from gnawing on the plant from the safety of its tunnel.
Habitat modification through adjusting watering practices can make the soil much less inviting for new colonization. Reducing deep watering and shifting to a less frequent, more targeted irrigation schedule decreases the overall moisture content in the deeper soil layers. This change causes the soil to harden slightly, increasing the effort required for a gopher to dig and maintain its burrow system.
For whole-area protection, exclusionary fencing can be installed to physically block the gopher’s entry. This subterranean barrier must be buried at least 18 to 24 inches deep and extend a few inches above the soil line to prevent the gopher from simply tunneling under or walking over the top. Using a durable, small-gauge hardware cloth for this purpose creates a permanent boundary that makes the yard inaccessible from surrounding areas.