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What About Gophers, Voles & Moles?

Last week, John and Trisha went to the Eco-Farm Conference in Pacific Grove. They came back with lots of useful information and some gopher traps. “The Farm Pest Animal Control Without Poisons” presentation by Thomas Wittman, from Gophers Limited, was a crash course on moles, voles and gophers and how to deal with them in an effectively green way. Check out www.gopherslimited.com for excellent videos on controlling moles, voles and gophers.

Since the Burrow Blocker is designed for ground squirrel control, John is always on the lookout for a way to deal with gophers, moles and voles. When John got back from the conference, he went out at the ranch with his grandsons, and set a few cinch traps from Gophers Limited. In less than an hour, they had caught a gopher.

Another way to deal with too many rodents, is to encourage natural predators to take care of them. Did you know that an owl family can eat more than 1,000 rodents per year? That’s a lot of gophers, voles and mice. Since owls are nocturnal, they miss the ground squirrels because they are in their burrows at night.  For more information on the benefits of owls and putting up an owl nesting box, visit:  www.hungryowl.org

We found out from Thomas that we need to remove the perch from our owl box. The perch, just allows other predators to eat the nestlings. Now I just need to find a volunteer to climb up there and fix it.


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