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Awww!

Ok ok...sorry the thing looks so cute!

There must be a more way to get rid of them than to kill them?

A more humane way ..

How cute! I wants me one!

But he's so cute! Can't you just live together in peace? Who needs a lawn anyway?

Good thing I don't have a yard. I'd adopt the little guys.

There is a solution: just give it to David! ;)

Whatever you do, DON'T fill the holes with dynamite and then flood them with a hose. If Caddyshack taught us anything...

I would snuggle it to death.... or hit it on the head with a hammer

Okay, just got a little sick about you killing these little guys.

I had a pet prairie dog (smaller relative of the gopher) for many years (Sophie!), and she was the best and most loyal pet I've ever had.

Anyway. Maybe what it gets down to is that I just don't think that AT is the right forum for how best to kill fuzzy animals. Not just because the vast majority of us are going to ooh and ahh and cry about animal rights... but also because most of us just can't sympathize with lawn issues.

My constructive feedback is this: instead of removing the gophers, embrace them. Do a landscape of ornamental grasses and wildflowers instead of a formal lawn? After all, a lawn is a pain to maintain...

I bought a sonic deterrant. It was a stake that you bury and would emit a pulse of sound that was irritating to the gophers... I lost a couple of fruit trees before I figured it out.

I found a solar one:
http://www.amazon.com/Get-Organized-SOLAR-MOLE-CHASER/dp/B00028I21E/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1234984529&sr=8-3
but I did better with the battery powered ones I got from Costco.

a rodent infestation is not cute. these things breed quickly and exponentially. a yard full of that is nuts.

she asked for solutions, not ways to kill them.

There was time when my lawn as a kid looked like the veins on the back of your hand.

It was like a scene out of Caddyshack trying to get that thing.

My sister had them in her yard and started with humane methods, which didn't work, and ended with pouring in something flammable and lighting the hole on fire (which didn't work either).

I would try putting a boom-box in the yard tuned to a 24-hour heavy metal station. This is how my mom kept the rabbits and deer out of her garden last summer.

Have you tried your county/municipality? Sometimes they will lend you no-kill traps and then come and take the traps away when they're full. I lived in a country that did this for racoons. Not sure what they do with them afterwards but I guess I didn't care. Out of sight, out of mind.

I do empathise with your problem. After occasionally seeing "adorable" mice scamper across my living room floor (they honestly were cute) I woke up a few weeks ago and almost stepped on a dead mouse while staggering to the bathroom. Not cute anymore!

Hi Beth! Gophers are the pits and cute though they may be, they are extremely destructive. The only reason I knew what you had was my folks have had a terrible time with them. They have had full grown trees fall over, only to find the gophers had eaten the entire root system, and had a significant mudslide onto their property because gophers had riddled the hillside with holes and eaten all the plant roots.

I'm afraid killing the little buggers with the traps you saw is the most effective way to get rid of them (and most humane as it's a quick death). Not only do they ruin the appearance of your yard, they can really undermine the stability of the ground leading to people twisting ankles, collapsing holes during the rains, hillside instability, etc.

Here's an idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHIfWr1STgE

So cute! You don't own the lawn right? Let your landlord know if you really want them gone. But if you're trying to do something about it yourself find a humane way to do it. Those little buggers are gosh darn adorable and I would hate to see them come to any harm just to save a lawn from looking bad.

I've never had them, but I think the fact that I own a terrier, a couple of barn cats and have a nephew convinced them to go live somewhere safer.

This is not humane and totally off the wall, but hey, it worked for my parents and is cheap.

For moles: stick a piece of Juicy Fruit gum in their holes, apparently there is an ingredient that is poisonous to moles. Don't know about gophers though.

maybe invite a friend and their dog over for a BBQ and hours of playing in the yard will help.
Terriers also keep deep and bunnies away. The opposum still showed up, but he just hissed at the dog then kept waddling. Turned out that he hated being cornered, barked at and hosed all at the same time. You can't hiss when you are being sprayed with a hose!

This is so silly! Leave him alone! At my childhood home we ALWAYS had these creatures living in our lawn growing up. I challenge you on the fact that they reproduce quickly as I have never in all my decades seen more than one of these little buddies there at a time. I also challenge you on the fact that their burrowing is dangerous. I once ran full speed across the lawn and the ground gave way where there was a tunnel in one spot and guess what--I tripped and fell on the grass. BIG DEAL. No harm, no foul. Watch where you're going maybe? Also, please keep in mind just because you own the deed to the land or rent the property doesnt make the earth any less this guy's home!!! He isnt going inside your house like a rodent or an insect, so I don't see your beef.

Most humane methods of gopher control are simply sharing your problem with your neighbors. This does not make you loved.

Think of gophers as giant termites. If your infestation is serious, find a professional gopher removal service in your area. Most professionals offer Per trip / Per month / Per year contracts. Most yards require 5-7 trips over two-three months.

If you choose to do it yourself, avoid poisons that will kill pets who eat dead animals.

For what it's worth, the gophers will move on by themselves after they destroy the food value of your yard. You can put up traffic cones to warn the unwary, and let the gophers have their fun.

The thing about gophers is their range. Their runs probably go under 6 homes on your street, and they breed like crazy, as observed. The best I could ever manage was to chastise them into moving a few houses down.

If you live next to a park, well, gravel can be nice..

i stand corrected. according to wikipedia, pocket gophers are generally solitary and territorial. most species breed seasonally, though some drop litters year-round. it depends on the area. so we're both right.

that doesn't make this any less of a problem.

When a rodent eats your garden, you want to get rid of them in any way possible, and not embrace them. My husband will eradicate a rodent in any way possible...yes, even "that" way. However, we were told to put peppermint oil on a cotton ball, put it into the hole, and cover the hole. Occaisonally, the gopher would dig up in another place in the garden...so hubby would stick another cotton ball down the hole. The peppermint seemed to work...not one of our plants was eaten by the gophers. Hope this helps.

Disclaimer: I don't know what type of gopher we have and it may take some time.

Gophers don't just mess up lawns. They eat a lot of different things. I watched one pull a whole creeping fig vine down it's burrow. Another one undermined a 4 foot jade hedge so it fell over.

Anything I plant now gets buried in a cage of metal mesh.

Living with gophers can be hard when they have to potential to be so destructive.

We had a similar problem but with Groundhogs here in our property in Canada. I was torn with a humane way to deal with the issue, until half of my garden disappeared in an afternoon, then it was war. After I calmed down, I found an ideal solution THAT WORKED. As crazy as it sounds, you have the male human in your household to urinate in the hole, apparently the testosterone from the urine will scare the beast away. Four days of my husband trying this, it WORKED. Gone. No harm, no foul. It moved house, we covered the hole, and it hasn't been seen again.

Call the Co-op Extension Service (probably at an area university) and ask them what to do with your particular critter. In New England, we have ground moles, chipmunks, and ground hogs -- and the methods are different for each of those, so theyprobably are different for pocket gophers, too.

(Our ground hog only hung around a few weeks and then disappeared -- maybe a neighbor killed or removed him, we will never know. Our chipmunk was a little roto-rooter, ate most of my hostas, and caused a lot of landscape damage -- but he sure was cute and fun to watch!! Saw hills for moles but never saw the moles. They are NOT cute, as I recall for other meetings! They went away when we treated for grubs, their food supply.)

Can u post some more pics of your garden/lawn?

Perhaps those who say not to kill them would offer their addresses so if you can catch them, you can then relocate them to more welcoming surroundings!

Just trap them. Yes, you have to deal with it afterwards, and the traps are tricky, but it's the most effective way to control the population in your area. Look for the brand "Cinch"- it's the best one out there.

Also, since your area is prone to gophers, plant valuable plants in gopher baskets. They are a stronger gauge metal mesh basket (chicken and aviary wire are too thin and break down) that encase the roots of your new plants. I use them even for annuals.

Good luck! Gophers are my biggest battle out in the yard too!

Most of these commenters just don't understand. I have gophers in my yard. They are a nuisance. I had a guy mow my yard (and this in not suburban paradise -- it's rural and I just did not have a lawnmower) and the guy broke his ankle in my yard. BROKE HIS ANKLE. I could have been sued. Plus it has ruined any plants in the yard. It bit my dog on the nose. There is a new mound every morning. I have tried the sonic things, castor oil down the holes, traps (did not work) -- what else! I freaking hate gophers, and those people that sympathize with them have never had to deal with them. VERMIN! I hate them! I am doing battle as we speak -- i even planted a gopher plant (that's what it's called!) in my sage garden -- and the little bastard burrowed up right next to it! Argh!

Perhaps those who say not to kill them would offer their addresses so if you can catch them, you can then relocate them to more welcoming surroundings!

I'll take 'em! Do you ship?

I live in a rural area and I have a huge back yard and three cats. No problem. Every now and then I see a rabbit run across the yard but the cats chase anything away. Not one or two but three curious cats. No mice, no squirrels under the house eating cables etc.

I do see holes but they usually get abandoned real fast. I know when I have a visitor because the cats just sit waiting for it to show up.

I have a cat door which allows them to go chasing at any time of day or night. I understand why Egyptians worshiped them.

dartabout, yes, some of us DO understand how much you hate small furry animals that maybe have just as much right to exist on the planet as you do... we just view it differently. Peaceful co-existance is worth consideration.

My grandmother was the only one in my house with no fear of killing the gophers and moles in our yard when I was a kid. I was too little to see exactly, but she did something involving broken glass in their holes and they never came back. Yaya was serious about rodent control--she could also catch mice in the house with a dishcloth.

I know that if you want to get rid of a mole, you can put a (glass) bottle without a bottom into the holes with the bottle mouth sticking out of the hole. The sound of the wind going through the bottle and into the hole, scares them.

Mmmm, varmint barbecue!

Actually, we had a serious problem with chipmunks.
(I know, they're cute, but a dozen of them can really mess up your garden.)
We used these little green bait cubes from the local garden center. No smell, no toxins to handle. The tunnels eventually collapse and the chippies 'recycle'.

The best way to rid your lawn of moles and gophers is actually hair. I don't know why - the smell, the texture... no clue - they just hate the stuff. My hairdresser says people come in all the time asking for garbage bags full of hair to get rid of their backyard critters. Just sprinkle it on your lawn and in the holes, and away they go!