Pocket Gophers

Thomomys bottae minor Botta's Pocket Gopher

What’s A Pocket Gopher ??

What’s A Pocket Gopher ??

By Robb Russell, Anytime Wildlife Control 

Gainesville  Florida Gopher Trapper   I can tell you here  in North Central Florida  the pocket gopher is a big consumer greens like collards, tubers like sweet potatoes and alfalfa . Chances are if you have a crop of economic importance a pocket gopher could become your next menace. They love fertilized, well irrigated grasses, roots and tubers. They raid many vegetables and peanuts crops  every year,They prosper in deep sandy soil  and North Central Florida is full of it.

 

Alachua, Bell, Columbia City, Chiefland, Cross City, Fanning Springs, Old Town, Perry, madison , Greenville, Jasper, White Springs, Jennings Branford, Lake Butler. Hawthorne, Citra, Ocala, Williston,  Gainesville, High Springs, Lake Butler, Lake City, O’Brien, Mayo, Micanopy, Newberry, Providence, Suwannee, Trenton

 

When food is plentiful the female can have as many as three litters in a year. Locally we see two litters FEB/MAR and JUL/AUG. The sandy mounder or  South eastern Pocket Gopher has small litters of 1-3 young.

The South eastern Pocket Gopher or known locally as the Sandy Mounder . They get their name locally because of their characteristic sandy mounds in front of hidden burrow entrances.  Trapping the pocket gopher is the best answer . If you have any sign of pocket gophers it is a best to not let them build up but stop them early from breeding out of control later.

 

Pocket Gophers are found throughout North America including most of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Pocket gophers are rarely ever seen. They live  below the ground in burrows and are best suited for life below in the subterranean earth. Pocket gophers are vegetarians and are known to eat a variety of roots, tubers, green vegetation and yes even occasionally bark or wood. Pocket gophers typically will cut green shoots at ground level and bring them back down into their burrows.

Pocket gophers are not very popular in the agricultural community. They cause considerable damage to crops and orchards.  On ranches and farms they make large burrows and mounds that cause livestock such as cattle, horse, sheep and goats to break their legs and ankles.


Listen to Trapper Robb and Steve Albano On Moles & Gophers

With Co Hosts Mike Flick and the late Bob Evans.

 Play Download media
This is a Interview and discussion Trapper Robb  did with Steve Albano of Trapline Products  on  April 13, 2008. I am a customer of Steve’s and all of my pocket gopher traps were made by this fellow NWCOA member. I was also joined by Co hosts Mike Flick with Anytimeanimalcontrol.com  and the late Trapper Bob Evans of Madison NY.
For more information on Pocket gophers and pocket gopher trapping please visit his site http://www.traplineproducts.com/gophers.html
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A full evening with Steve Albano, of Peninsula Animal Trapping PO Box 4128 Menlo Park, CA 94025 (650) 363-7963 stevealbano@thegophinator.com We learn all about his wildlife control business and his products he has to offer the industry. After more than 14 years of operating a gopher and mole control service business using the marginally effective traps available on the market, Steve threw them all away in frustration, and designed The Gophinator. Recently Steve also released a new mole trap and sent out sample to various professionals throughout the industry to filed test them. Steve will be handling calls tonight on both his new mole trap and using The Gophinator in his business.
Photo Below Courtesy Sonya Meneely of Meneely Wildlife Control (http://ponca-ok-bat-bird-racoon-squirrel-skunk-wildlife-removal.com/ http://wichita.raccoonsquirrelremoval.com/ 580-749-5364 or 580-749-5673 (Enid, OK) and 918-213-4366 (Bartlesville, OK ) for more information.)demonstrating a  catch using Steve Albano’s Gophinator Traps.

Pockets gophers have been classified in three distinct  genera .

  1. Geomys- These pocket gophers have large and strong foreclaws; very small eyes; two grooves on upper incisors.
  2. Thomyms- These pocket gophers have small forelegs and slender foreclaws; small eyes and no grooves on upper incisors. They have incisors that are very pronounced and stick out.
  3. Cratogeomys- Very large upper and lower incisors, large strong foreclaws medium sized eyes and have one groove on incisors.

There are several different species of the pocket gophers found across North America.  I have tried to put together a list here of all North American Pocket gophers species and help our most common visitor the prospective gopher trapper help identify what pocket gopher species they may have int their own local areas. The following account for the species Geomys here in North America.


The South Eastern Pocket Gopher
ranges North from Central Florida to
South Georgia and  South Alabama.
Here in Florida I have caught hundreds of the South Eastern Pocket Gophers (Geomys pinetis)  since relocating my family to the High Springs, Florida  area in 2008.  The locals call  them Salamanders or Sandy Mounders and folks in these parts think a gopher is gopher tortoise and then alot of folks who just don’t know think they have moles because they have tunneling and burrows in their yards. A sub species once known to be in  eastern Florida is now thought to be extinct Geomys pinetis goffi.
Here in Florida the Pocket gopher makes a feast of sweet potato crops  and loves raiding peanut fields. Their burrowing activities have contributed to damage to livestock such as cattle and horses.
Texas Pocket Gopher (Geomys personatus)

Texas Pocket Gopher Geomys personatus

English: range of Geomys bursarius (Plains Poc...

The Range of the  Plains Pocket Gopher.

The Plains Pocket Gopher Geomys bursarius This is the only Geomys species found in the North as far as most of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma

Texas Pocket Gophers number six different species of geomys; Desert Pocket Gopher Geomys arenarius; Jones Pocket Gopher Geomys knoxjonesi; Texas Pocket Gopher Geomys personatus; Baird’s Pocket Gopher Geomys breviceps ( Found in Eastern Texas , Oklahoma, Arkansas and West Louisiana ); Llano Pocket Gopher Geomys texensis; Atwater’s Pocket Gopher Geomys attateri

 Crateogeomys Pocket Gophers

 Yellow faced Pocket Gopher Cratogeomys castanops
Yellow-faced Pocket Gopher

Yellow faced Pocket Gopher Ctategeomys castrnops

The Crateogeomys pocket gophers have one lone  species that is found in South Eastern Kansas, in the Oklahoma Panhandle, Colorado, New Mexico and western Texas and parts of Mexico the Yellow faced Pocket Gopher Cratogeomys castanops (Chihuahua and Coahuila).

The Thomomys  Pocket Gophers (Slender front claws)

 A very common pocket gopher , the Northern Pocket Gopher (Thomomys talpoides) is found in British Columbia, Alberta, Sasketewan, Manitoba in Canada and in North and South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, Utah, extreme NE California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
The Western Pocket Gopher (Thomomys mazama) lives locally in small pockets in Washington State and believed to be endangered, Oregon and Northern California . This species prefers deep, soft volcanic soils  of alpine meadows, and young open forest stands.
English: Pocket Gopher photographed at Ano Nue...

Botta’s Pocket Gopher Thomomys bottae

Botta’s Pocket Gopher is found in the South West from as far north as parts of oregon, and including most of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and the Baja California,  Baja California Sur, Sonora Chihuahua in Mexico.  There fur color varies and matches local soil color. Males are larger then females. This species is very small in desert regions but very large in agricultural areas where food supply is abundantly plentiful.

Southern Pocket Gopher (Thomyms umbrinus ) is rarely found in the broder regions of Arizona and New Mexico (endangered)  and in Sonora Mexico. Found in elevations of 3000-6000 feet in rocky shallow soil near oak woodlands.
Wyoming Pocket Gopher (Thomomyms clusius)  Found in elevatuions of 8200-11,000 ft in habits with loose gravelly  soils. Found in Sweetwater and carbon Counties in South Central Wyoming.
Idaho Gopher (Thomomyms idahoensis)  Don’t let the name fool ya it is found in central Idaho but it is also found in parts of  south and west Montana, north east Utah and west Wyoming. They prefer shallow stoney soils but very little study has been done on this pocket gopher species.
Mountain Pocket Gopher Thomomys montocola  They use snow tunnels in the winter for finding and foraging food and depositing earth. They breed in late spring have litters of 3-4 and the females have one litter a year. They are found in Montane meadows, pastures and open coniferous forests. They are found at elevations of about 5000 ft range from Sierra Nevada Mts of north central California and western Nevada.
Townsends Pocket Gopher Thomomys townsendii  They have scattered populations in southern Idaho, south east Oregon, Northern Nevada, and north east California. Females breed twice a year and can have 3-7 young in 1-2 litters a year.

Botta's Pocket Gopher

Cama’s Pocket Gopher Thomomys bulbivorus This is an agricultural menace they eat forbs and grasses, alfalfa, carrots, potatoes and the roots of fruit and nut trees. Found in Willamette valley, north western Oregon.

Need help trapping Pocket Gophers?  We not only can help but we know how to trap gophers, and eliminate future problems with gophers by trapping  the only proven method used by farmers and ranchers everyday because it works. Please consult the stst by state directory on this web site and support members of our Anytime Wildlife Control team.

In North Florida, Alachua,  Columbia, Bradford, Gilchrist, Levy, Dixie and Union Counties call Trapper Robb.

 

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