Gopher (animal)

For other uses, see Gopher (disambiguation).

Columbian Ground Squirrel
Banff, Alberta, Canada

The term gopher as it is commonly used does not relate to any one species, but is a generic term used to describe any of several small burrowing rodents endemic to North America, including the pocket gopher (family Geomyidae), also called true gophers, and the ground squirrel (family Sciuridae), including Richardson's ground squirrel and species of prairie dog.

Gophers weigh around 0.5 pounds (230 g), and are about 15 inches (38 cm) long in body length, with a tail 7 inches (18 cm) long. Their lifespan is normally 2–3 years (assuming no diseases or predation). Gophers dig tunnels and subterranean chambers, and are associated with the rodent order, Rodentia. There are over 100 kinds of gophers in America. Gophers, because of their burrowing, can disrupt human plans like commercial agriculture, garden plots, some landscaping, and some underground cables. This has led to their frequent treatment as pests.

Gophers create a large community of tunnels with large mounds of dirt and rocks at their entrances, frequently referred to as gopher towns. Adult gophers will frequently stand watch at the entrance to a tunnel and whistle when predators are spotted, causing all the other gophers to run for the safety of the tunnels. A gopher town can easily spread to take over large sections of prairie or mountain meadow and may have a population in the thousands. The resulting destruction of plant life will then leave the area a stretch of denuded dirt. Gophers eat shrubs and other vegetation.^{[citation needed]}