California Gardening: Any gopher solutions? Part 2, 1 by quiltygirl

quiltygirl wrote:
I had a gopher snake tangled in some bird netting this spring - scared me to death when I found him by moving the ball of netting with hands. At first glance I did not know it was not a rattler! At first I thought he was dead, but then, my neighbor and daughter carefully cut the netting to release him - lastly cutting the net out of his mouth. We gave him some water to drink, then released him into an existing gopher hole. I can only hope the little guy was able to get to work earning his keep!

Our gophers are very cheeky and will stand with their heads out of the holes watching the dogs or me, even right next to my shoe! One Miniature Pinscher was able to catch one and chewed on him, but more typically the dogs just end up making the gopher holes larger. They are not so active right now, but that Gopher device sounds great - especially since the dead bodies do not have to be handled. My neighbor and his nephews had several of those traps they put into holes this year and were able to get about a dozen gophers, but then someone has to pull that dead body out in order to reset the trap... Yuck.