Varmint Explosion

Matt Brechwald, Owner of Idaho Gopher Control in Kuna. “2015 is turning out to be a very bad year for farmers, why is that? I think it is a combination of a very warm December and a not too cold January then a really warm February. We were exterminating gophers and vols all the way to the end of the year and we had more jobs in December than we have ever had. Then we started on February 1 and since then we have been setting records. We have been incredibly busy and use with all three species, ground squirrels, gophers and vols. In our experience every year seems to have a heavy population of maybe one of those, but this year all three seem to be very very heavy. Do milder winters help them proliferate? Particularly with gophers, I have talked to other exterminators in Eastern Oregon as well as farmers around here in the Treasure Valley. Based on what I am seeing and all the discussions that I have had, it doesn’t appear that we had a second and even third litter of gophers in 2014 on into early 2015. The new and immature gophers started to emerge in early February and March which is two or three months ahead of normal in terms of having a new litter emerge. The traditional breeding season for gophers starts in March. You start to see them emerge in May to June and early July. We are looking at maybe 2 to 3 times the new gophers coming out this year because it appears they had letters over the winter.