Gopher Control in Oxnard, CA

Gopher, Mole or Vole: What Is Digging in Your Yard?

Gophers live alone, except during breeding season. A yard with dozens of mounds may have only one or two animals, which is why targeted trapping works well.

Signs of Gophers

• Fresh fan-shaped mounds of fine soil, with the hole plugged
• Plants, vegetables or young shrubs that wilt suddenly or can be pulled out with the roots chewed off
• Drip lines and sprinkler tubing chewed underground, causing leaks or wet spots
• Soft spots or sunken areas in the lawn where tunnels have collapsed
• Bark chewed off the base of young trees just below the soil line

How Gopher Control Works

1. Finding the main tunnel. The technician probes the soil near the freshest mounds to locate the main burrow, which runs between mounds a few inches to a foot underground.
2. Setting traps in the tunnel. Traps go into the main runway, usually in pairs facing both directions, and the opening is covered to keep light out. Trapping is the most reliable method and removes the animal you are dealing with.
3. Checking and resetting. Traps are checked on follow-up visits and moved if the gopher digs around them. New fresh mounds after a capture mean another gopher is present.
4. Closing burrows. Once activity stops, burrow openings are collapsed and filled so new gophers, and yellowjackets looking for nest sites, do not reuse them.

Other approaches, such as bait applied underground inside the burrow, are used only where appropriate and according to label directions and state rules, and never where pets or children could get to it. Smoke bombs, flooding and noise devices usually do little, because gophers seal off the tunnel section and keep going.

What Affects the Cost of Gopher Control

• Size of the yard and how much of it has fresh activity.
• Number of gophers. More separate tunnel systems means more traps and visits.
• Pressure from outside the yard. Properties next to fields, open lots or the river see new gophers move in, and may need periodic service rather than a one-time job.
• Hardscape and planting. Tunnels under pavers, dense ground cover or raised beds are harder to reach.

Why Gophers Do So Well in Oxnard Yards

The Oxnard Plain is made of deep, fine soils laid down by the Santa Clara River, and much of it has been farmed for more than a century. That soil is easy to dig, and the lawns and gardens planted on it are watered all through the dry season, so there is always tender root growth to eat. Gophers living in fields, ditch banks and open land at the edge of town move into neighboring yards, which is why homes in areas like El Rio and RiverPark often see new mounds even after the last gopher was trapped.

For new planting beds and young trees, lining the planting hole or bed with galvanized wire mesh (gopher baskets) protects the roots for years. For lawns, the most practical approach is catching new arrivals early, as soon as the first fresh mound appears.

Gopher control is one part of our Oxnard pest control services. For rats and mice around the house itself, see rodent control.