Vole and gopher control — print version.
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SUS Farms · Utah Gardening
Vole and gopher control
pests · intermediate · ~5 min read
Voles eat plant roots and bark. Gophers eat the entire root system from below. Both will undermine an apple tree in one winter. Most homeowners try poison bait first — which often doesn't work and sometimes makes the population grow. The strategies that work long-term are physical exclusion and trapping.
Hardware cloth tree wells
Wrap a 2-foot-diameter cylinder of 1/4-inch hardware cloth around each fruit tree, sunk 6 inches below grade and rising 18 inches above. Voles can't chew through hardware cloth. Standard plastic tree guards aren't enough — voles squeeze under, work the bark from below the soil line.
Vole traps
Mouse snap traps baited with peanut butter, placed at runway entrances, covered with a board or flat rock. Check daily. Voles run regular runways in lawn thatch — pull back the thatch and you can see the trails. Two traps per 1,000 sq ft is a reasonable density for an active infestation.
Gopher traps
Macabee traps placed in the main tunnel (not the lateral feeder runs). Find the main tunnel by probing 8–12 inches deep, 6 inches downhill from a fresh mound. Set two traps facing opposite directions. Cover with a board so soil light doesn't hit them — gophers seal off light-entering tunnels and abandon traps.
Why poison bait fails
Bait works on voles, but voles also breed every 21 days and produce 5–10 litters per year. Killing 60% of the population only triggers compensatory breeding. Worse, secondary poisoning kills the hawks, owls, and snakes that would otherwise help control vole numbers naturally.
Habitat changes that help
Voles love thick grass thatch. Mowing short and removing thatch removes their cover. Gravel mulch (vs. wood chip) at fruit tree bases discourages both species. Cats are surprisingly effective vole hunters; not so much for gophers.