More On Cruelty-free way to get rid of garden gopher?

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Here is some info on gophers I found.A typical pocket gopher can move approximately a ton of soil to the surface each year. This enormous achievement reflects the gopher's important ecological function.Their tunnels are built and extended, then gradually fill up with soil as they are abandoned. The old nests, toilets, and partially filled pantries are buried well below the surface where the buried vegetation and droppings become deep fertilization. The soil thus becomes mellow and porous after being penetrated with burrows. Soil that has been compacted by trampling, grazing, and machinery is particularly benefited by the tunneling process.

In mountainous areas, snowmelt and rainfall are temporarily held in gopher burrows instead of running over the surface, where they are likely to cause soil erosion.Surface mounds created by gophers also bury vegetation deeper and deeper, increasing soil quality over time. In addition, fresh soil in the mounds provides a fresh seedbed for new plants, which may help to increase the variety of plants on a site.

Many mammals, large birds, and snakes eat gophers and depend on their activities to create suitable living conditions. Salamanders, toads, and other creatures seeking cool, moist conditions take refuge in unoccupied gopher burrows. Lizards use abandoned gopher burrows for quick escape cover.

The benefits of pocket gophers are: (1) in- creased soil fertility by adding organic matter such as buried vegetation andfecal wastes; (2) increased soil aeration and decreased soil compaction; (3) increased water infiltration and thus

decreased runoff; and (4) increased rate of soil formation by bringingsubsoil material to the surface of the ground, subjecting it to weathering. Decisions on whether or not to control gophers may be influenced by the animals' benefits, which are long-term

and not always readily recognized, and the damage they cause, which is obvious and sometimes substantial in the short-term. Landowners who are currently troubled by pocket gophers can gain tremendously by studying the gophers' basic biology. They would gain economically by learning how to manage their systems with pocket gophers in mind, and aesthetically by understanding how this interesting animal "makes a living."Complete control may upset the long-term integrity of

ecosystems in a manner that we cannot possibly predict from our current knowledge of the structure and function of those systems.Pat Cuviello