Ecosystem Friendly Gopher & Mole Removal Services

The most affordable gopher and mole removal service in Santa Cruz County

Gopher Cleanout

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Bottas pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae) can be very destructive when they end up in your garden, yard or lawn. Because gophers eat roots as well as other plants and excavate large tunnel systems, they can cause quite a bit of damage in a short period of time. Gophers can breed up to twice a year with their primary breeding season being in late winter or spring, its best to get onto of your gopher problem before they reproduce.

A Cleanout is the ideal scenario for the home owner and likely what you’d imagine as a gopher removal service. We show up and trap intensively for a short period of time, setting as many traps as we can and removing most or all of the gophers from your yard or lawn.

Cleanout jobs involve an initial set up fee. Our setup fee is based on the season, soil conditions and your location. Call if you’d like to know more. The setup fee covers up to two weeks of bi weekly service (or less if all gophers are caught). Once finished, all subsequent jobs (more than 7 days after our last visit) involve another setup fee.

On-top of the setup fee we charge by the gopher caught, during the wet season its $35 per gopher, during the dry season in non irrigated hard or dry soil its $45 per gopher.

to summarize, with a cleanup your looking at a setup fee the first visit, then paying per gopher caught on subsequent visits.

Mole Cleanout

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Northern Broad Footed Moles (Scapanus latimanus) are insectivores. Unlike gophers they pose little risk to the safety of your plants and trees. Moles can leave a variety of sign, but their most conspicuous and damaging sign are foraging tunnels and deep tunnel excavations. Their foraging tunnels are made over a large area and left for their prey (insects) to fall into and be eaten when the mole comes back through.

Because moles have much larger home ranges, up to half an acre depending on food availability. They can be much more time consuming to catch. For this reason, I charge a setup fee as I do for a gopher clean out, on top of that its $50 per mole caught year round.

Monthly Maintenance

Monthly Flat fee

While most small properties are well suited for cleanup jobs, some more rural larger properties or smaller properties adjacent to quality gopher or mole habitat require longer term Maintenance. This is custom designed for your properties needs. Monthly Maintenance typically involves monthly, bi monthly or weekly visits. With a maintenance program you're not paying per gopher or mole, but rather per visit. This is a great option for properties that seem to have never ending gopher or mole problems where a re-occuring set up fee charge would be greater than a maintance account. I encourage most customers to first try a cleanout and see how that does, if gopher and mole problems return in a few weeks, we can discuss a maintenance program.

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The ecological role of gophers

Bottas Pocket Gophers are not always pests when found outside of our landscaped yards. Gophers are an integral part of a healthy ecosystem. Some of the positive roles gophers can play include but are not limited too: increasing soil fertility by mixing plant material and fecal wastes into the soil. Soil aeration, their burrowing decreases its compaction resulting in better aeration. Gophers also help speed up the formation of new soil by bringing minerals to the surface while excavating their burrow systems.

While historically the gopher population would be kept in check by mess carnivores, habitat fragmentation has made that a difficult task for those species that enjoy a gopher for a snack.

The ecological role of moles

Broad Footed Moles are also here for a reason, they fulfill a niche that makes them a valuable thread in the intricate web that is a healthy ecosystem. Research from Penn State has shown that “Moles play a beneficial role in the management of soil and the control of undesirable grubs and insects. By tunneling and shifting soil particles, moles permit better aeration of the soil, help dry out sod, and enable humus (organic matter) to travel deeper into the soil.”

Behaviorally Moles are antisocial, solitary animals. Living alone except to reproduce during breeding season. A mole typically travels more than 1/4 of an acre and often one mole can be using several yards or lawns while making the rounds. This large home range can make removing an individual mole a difficult task.

Moles themselves are insectivores which means they eat primarily insects. Some of their favorite foods include Mole crickets, Ants, earthworms, Snails, Spiders, Beatle grubs and basically any insect that lives below ground. Due to their extremely demanding metabolism moles must eat constantly, often taking in more than their body weight in insects daily. Their voracious appetite makes them very good at controlling the insect pests in your yard (if you can tolerate the damage the foraging tunnels can create). A fun fact about moles is that they paralyze earthworms and store them in a special cache to eat later.

Bottas Pocket Gopher (Photo Copyright Jack Harrison 2023)

Broad Footed Mole. (Photo Copyright Jack Harrison2023)