Good Gopher, Dead Gopher

 

I'm not sure I am ready to say that spring has finally arrived, no matter what the mannequins are wearing at Wal-Mart, no matter what happened last Saturday (among other things, first official day of spring, Horace), or no matter how balmy it seems at this point of writing.

If there are any indicators of spring, they would be gophers, of course. Gophers, as in those furry little vermin that hop, skip, and jump across every roadway in southern Alberta.

The first gopher sighting of 2010, for me, was about three weeks ago. It was one of those bittersweet sightings: bitter, because it meant that gophers are here for a while; and sweet, because it meant that spring was finally here (based on the above hypothesis).

Green, eco-ninjas would decry any objection to these poor critters. For starters, they might disagree with me calling them "vermin." I can also see them banning gopher hunting, as they would likely cite animal cruelty. So would any form of poisoning, for that matter, suggesting that this particular form of animal cruelty might actually be the worst. I even might agree with the latter sentiment, but only because it could do damage to other productive livestock or soil.

Believe it or not, I can honestly say some positive things about them.

1. It makes driving fun. Whenever I see one basking in the sun on the yellow line (also known as the yellow brick road to them), I am tempted (operative word) to run it over. It may not be fun for the driver in the other lane – or my own passengers, for that matter - but it could be for me. ("Honest, officer, I was just trying to clean up the environment.")

2. It saves on cat food. If I don't feed my cats on a regular basis, they need to eat something – and gopher pot pie is the ticket. Granted, they make the expression, "dinner on the run," take on a new meaning. Quick question here: Would that make gophers "fast food"?

3. It is a cheaper and healthier hobby than computer games, and I am thinking specifically of hunting gophers. Tramping through the fields with rifle in hand and dog in tow is the life. No, I haven't actually done it, but that's what I'm told.

4. It cleans up the environment. Getting rid of them would help our poor stressed-out planet. So many gophers make a big heap of gopher droppings, and a lot of unsanitized messes are not good for the carbon footprint on this fragile eco-system. (Good quote – eh, greens?) At least with human waste there are many positive uses for our recycled meals.

Would this world be a better place if there were fewer or even no gophers? Absolutely! Is there a better way to rid our prairies of these pests? Probably. If one could come up with a humane way to do it, I'd go for it. To twist yet another adage: The only good gopher is a dead gopher – and any way to carry that out is fine by me.

There is only one slight problem: If there were no gophers, how could we tell when it was spring? I think that's easy: If it snows in April, we would know we are only weeks away from summer, so that would make it spring already.