Gopher wars continue...

We have been invaded by gophers. We have gophers everywhere, but they mostly invade the soil around our house - in the lawn, in my wife's flower gardens, and in our small vineyard. Now it's not like these little buggers are starving. We live on 20 acres with an estimated 600-900 oak trees, so they have enough oak roots to eat from now until eternity. But I guess the gophers are looking for more culinary delights like, "root of fescue grass with topsoil", or "root of marigold", or "root of agapanthus", and the more discriminating gophers go to our vineyard where they can feast on "root of Viognier" before dinner, followed by "root of Pinot Noir" for the main course.

This is a war, but we have discovered a new weapon; "The Gopher Tool", a subsoil bait injector. The "Tool" is a clever invention; it is a long probe with handles on the upper end plus a capsule with a crank. The capsule is filled with poison bait. The probe is pushed into the ground and when you feel a sudden lack of resistance, you know the tip of the probe has entered a gopher tunnel. You then turn the crank and a small door opens at the bottom of the probe and deposits strychnine poison pellets (coated with a special tasty "gopher sauce") in the tunnel. The gophers come along, feast on this delicacy and die.

We recently ran out of the pellets, which we have been borrowing from our neighbor. He said that to get a new supply, a government permit from the Department of Agriculture was required and his permit had expired. So being a lifelong taxpayer that has never depended on the government for anything, I decided to put the government in action. So the next day I went to our local DOA office. As I walked in, it was like a morgue but I could see several people behind glass windows "hanging out" in their offices. I was the only visitor in the building. I told the receptionist I was there to get a permit to buy "Wilco Gopher Getter" poison bait pellets. She said, "You need to talk to an Agriculture Inspector for that let me see if he is available". Unfortunately he and his office mates were obviously very busy behind the glass windows and she came out to tell me that he would have to call me back, and she took my name and phone number.

So I left the DOA, and on the way home I stopped at our local Farm Supply where I know a guy, who in addition to working at the store, has a 20 acre vineyard. I told him that I was at the DOA to try and get a permit to buy bait for my "Gopher Tool" and asked him if there was anything else I could use. He said, "We have the Wilco Gopher Getter bait" and took me to a section with a full shelf of what I wanted. He then explained that the bait used by homeowners like myself includes 0.5% strychnine poison and is available off the shelf. He said the poison that requires a permit (like my neighbor had) contains 1% strychnine and is normally only used in large vineyards and agriculture fields where they spread the poison pellets and then plow them into the ground so gophers eat them while they are digging their tunnels. Isn't it nice to know that the vines that grow our grapes and the agriculture we eat is grown in soil laced with a bit of strychnine poison?

Anyway, that evening I was back in action filling those tunnels with an evening meal for all the local gophers.

A week later...

Now originally this was going to be a sarcastic blog about our incompetent government, but I received a call today from an Agriculture Biologist with the local DOA. I must admit he was professional, personable, and very accommodating. He spent a lot of time with me literally describing the physiology of gophers, how this poison bait works, and why it is regulated and is sending me a booklet on gopher control. He said I made the right decision buying the lower dose poison bait since the higher dose is only used by large agriculture operations.

So even though they were a week late in responding to my problem, my perception is that at least this small segment of our government seems to know what they are doing.