Are gophers good to eat?

Thursday, 12 November 2009 05:00

November 12, 1890. The Battleford Saskatchewan Herald wants to know, are gophers good to eat? If they are, as an American report suggests, that might help eradicate, or at least reduce, the pests.

The prairie gophers eat farmers' crops and city flowers. Gopher holes pockmark prairies and parks. A cow or a baseball player, tripped up by a gopher hole, can break a leg. Prairie farm boys have long honed their marksmanship by shooting gophers with .22 calibre rifles. In 2007, Regina planted some 9,000 smoke bombs down almost 15,000 gopher holes in a losing battle against gophers.

The Saskatchewan Herald quotes an item from the Emmons County, North Dakota, Record:

"We know of three or four settlers in this county who—primarily through lack of meat, secondarily in the interest of science—have devoured gophers. With one accord these settlers assert that they never tasted better flesh; that it is tender and sweet, and superior to the squirrels of the woods. What we want to get at is this; if the gopher can be made a regular article of diet, its numbers would decrease rapidly. Not only would country people slaughter thousands, but sportsmen from the city would also join the crusade."

Gophers, like woodland squirrels, have in fact long been eaten. For those who might be interested in trying it, a search for "gopher recipe" on Google will turn up more than 500 hits.