The Great Gopher War

They’re cute. They’re furry. They’re dangerous.

It’s gopher season here, again. Time to get out whatever nontoxic whatsit that’ll make the ankle breaking hole makers move on (to heaven or the next field, whichever comes first).

So far I’ve tried such things as nailing two decoy owls to the fence (I have a neat story on that; remind me to tell you about it in a little bit), spraying perfume in the hole (namely Oscar de la Renta… which didn’t work for long… but now we have the best smelling gophers on the planet, bar none), cramming their holes with very large rocks (which seems to be the only thing working at the moment), and a whole host of other attempts, some with varying degrees of temporary success, and others which didn’t phase the little bastards one iota.

Now before you go all PETA on me, just remember that I’m an animal lover to the extreme. But when push comes to shove (or rather, gopher’s rights vs. the health of my beloved equines), it’s a no-brainer—Gopher City needs to move by almost any means necessary. In other words, it’s war. Ah, but with other animals around that I want to keep healthy, namely dogs, cats and horses, poison is out of the question. So is hiring the gun toting and possibly inbred neighbor and his two gun toting and possibly inbred sons down the road who, in their kill-spree-delirium, might mistake a horse for said gopher, in which case I’d be the one shooting, would most likely get arrested for attempted murder, and would still be at square one with the gophers.

Dilemmas.

Now, if a few hawks would just move in. Or perhaps some gopher snakes. I have a massive phobia of snakes, but I’ll tell ya I’d welcome them over the gophers, anytime. At least snakes leave when the pickins are few. Gophers, on the other hand, are rarely without pickins, eating roots, trees, grass, plants and, heck, even things you wouldn’t normally suspect—yep they’re not only dangerous to equines, they’re dangerous to each other!

Speaking of which, a friend of mine was terribly late getting to work one day. When asked why, he said all the cars were backed up at the overpass because of a very sweet and sad sight. According to him, a gopher had earlier run out in front of a car and was killed. That wasn’t the sad part. What was, was that its brave little wife/husband/friend/son/daughter gopher attempted a rescue mission by running out, grabbing said dead gopher, and dragging it inch by inch back to safety.

Aww, isn’t that just too sweet?

Well no, not really.

What my friend didn’t know was that gophers are cannibals, the rescue merely grocery shopping. Not that that has any bearing on equines. But the knowledge of it definitely eases my guilt of wanting rid of them.

Gophers: It’s on.