Killing Gophers

Back when I was in High School I worked one summer as a groundskeeper in the San Bernardino County Parks and Recreation Department. It was interesting work, which mostly consisted of picking up trash and trimming trees. Very hard work in the 100+ degree weather that existed in Southern California at the time. I hated it.

Still, there was one activity during that time that I enjoyed...you might even say I excelled at it. Killing gophers and ground squirrels.

Some might find what I did reprehensible. Killing soft, cute, fuzzy creatures. But meh..they were a menace and really tore up the parks unless they were kept under control. Plus, killing them was really fun!

We had a couple different techniques, but the most effective used gas bombs. Now, the gas bomb wasn't to kill them...nah...best you could do with it was annoy them. But what it did do was flush them out.

What you did was you find the gopher hole, and you dig it out about 12-18 inches...really get deep in there. Then you drop the gas bomb and quickly bury it, packing down the earth pretty hard. Then you watch the surrounding area. Any place where the white smoke was leaking out heavily was a place where the little bugger would likely emerge. As soon as you saw him, you smacked him on the head with a shovel as hard as you possibly could.

Generally they were very slow to dodge the attack since they were groggy from the gas, so usually I downed them in a single swing, but sometimes it would take multiple swings for the little buggers to go down.

It was great fun. Whoops, have to run... I'm going to submit my application to be the official blogger for PETA now.

Wish me luck!