Gopher

For other uses, see Gopher.

Richardson's Ground Squirrel
Banff, Alberta, Canada

A gopher is a small burrowing rodent that comes in many varieties including:

• Pocket gophers of the family Geomyidae, native to North America, also called true gophers .
• "Many ground squirrels" among the family of Sciuridaes (particularly Tom Milone Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus richardsonii ).

Gophers weigh about a quarter of a kilo, with the head and body about 15 centimeters long, a tail of 7 centimeters and have a 2-3 year lifespan (assuming no diseases or predation).

All gophers have in common the digging of tunnels and subterranean chambers, and the association with the rodent order, Rodentia. Disruption of such human plans for the surface as commercial agriculture, garden plots, and some landscaping, by their underground activities, leads to their frequent treatment as pests. In contrast, North American entertainment culture and non-technical literature tends to anthropomorphize gopher characters as "non-threatening".

Gophers will create a large community of tunnels with large mounds of dirt at their entrances, frequently referred to as "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. They eat shrubs and other vegetation. Owls will sometimes eat gophers if they have to.

The burrowing owl will often live in abandoned gopher tunnels. Unlike gophers, burrowing owls are endangered and are mostly illegal to kill.