Oftentimes when I have a conversation with someone about a critter that is tearing up their lawns, they will blame either a mole or a gopher. And more often than not, the damage is attributed to the wrong animal. So, let’s talk about how to identify the culprit from the different types of damage and then what we can do about it.

The easiest way to determine if the critter tearing up your yard is a mole, or a gopher is by looking at the ground. If you have moles, you will notice dirt raised above their underground tunnels. As they dig, they push the soil up a little bit making it fairly easy for you to see where they’ve been and where they are going. They leave a trail so to speak.

Gophers are the ones that make the mounds of dirt above the ground. As they are tunneling, the dirt needs to go somewhere so they push it up to the surface forming these dirt mounds. The shape of the mounds varies from round to semi-circular and they can be relatively small or as large as 2 feet in diameter. In either case, these dirt mounds tend to be about 6 inches high. Since gophers can make as many as 200 of these mounds per year, you can see how that could tear up your landscape. Moles on the other hand are not quite as visibly destructive. However, it’s fairly easy to twist an ankle if you step on a mole tunnel. So, each of these animals can present challenges for us above ground dwellers.

Moles are meat eaters in that they are constantly in search of worms to fill their stomachs. On average, moles can eat their weight in worms each day so that’s a lot of worms and a lot of digging to do in search of worms. Imagine if we had to eat our weight in cheeseburgers each day. That would take a lot of work.

Gophers on the other hand are in search of green things to eat (moles = meat, gophers = greens). They prefer to dine on the roots of trees, grasses, seeds, leaves, tubers, and bulbs. We call them gophers but technically they are pocket gophers. They get this name because they have small pouches on either side of their mouths where they can store food to take back to their underground home.

For the most part, I tend to not worry too much about either of these animals. While I’ve had them both in my landscape, other than the occasional dirt mound, I’ve never really experienced much trouble with them. So, I tend to just live and let live.

That being said, sometimes the gophers can be pretty destructive and because of that you may choose to try and eliminate them from your landscape temporarily. I say temporarily, because once you eliminate a gopher, it probably won’t be that long until another one moves into your landscape. If you do feel the need to try and eliminate the problem, here’s what you can do.

As far as gophers go, you can use poison grain or traps for this purpose. With poison grain, you just pour some other the grain into one of their tunnels and hope they take the bait so to speak. However, if you have pets, this method is not recommended since one of you pets could accidentally fall victim to this poison grain. In this case, traps would be a better choice.

Gopher traps come in a variety of styles, but I have had good luck with the spring-loaded trap variety. They look kind of like an extreme mouse trap. The key to trapping a gopher is to look for fresh mounds of dirt. A fresh mound will have a darker look since there is still moisture in the soil. Once you find a fresh mound, poke around the mound in the soil to find a tunnel. When you find a tunnel, dig out the soil above it to reveal the tunnel. When handling these traps, you should wear a good set of leather gloves to protect your hands since traps can be inadvertently sprung during this process and those springs are strong. I may or may not have learned lesson this the hard way.

When trying to trap a gopher, it also a good idea to have two traps. When using two traps, you are able to place one facing each direction in the tunnel because you really don’t know which direction the gopher will be coming from. It’s also a good idea to tie your traps to a stake or a concrete block to secure them because it’s not unusual for a gopher, once trapped, to take off down the tunnel with your trap. In this case you would lose the gopher and the trap.

Once you have the traps in place, armed, and secured, it’s time to cover the hole with a rock or a piece of wood to prevent light from entering the tunnel. They you just need to wait.

Fresh air circulating in the tunnel will let the gopher know there is a breach in the tunnel somewhere and they will search it out to repair. If after a couple of days, you don’t get any action on your tunnel, the gopher has likely moved on and it’s time to begin the search again.

If you feel the need to deal with the moles in your yard, there are poison worms available for this purpose. After getting some of these poison worms (they kind of look like very boring gummy worms) you’ll need to find an active mole tunnel. To do this, smash down a tunnel mound and come back later to see if it is raised up again. This would mean it’s an active tunnel.

When you find an active tunnel, poke a hole in the tunnel and drop in one of these poison worms, then cover up the hole. Be sure to wear gloves during this process as it’s not a good idea to handle the worms since it’s a poison, plus you don’t want any human scent on the worm. Then you just watch for more active tunnels to see if your efforts were successful.

So, that about it. Again, in most cases there not a need to take action unless the damage they are causing rises above your pain threshold. See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram