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What is 8 inches long and can move a ton of soil to the surface in a year?

It's the Mazama pocket gopher, a threatened species that plays an important role in the ecology of Washington's Puget Sound prairies.

The Nature Conservancy in Washington and its partners have been working to restore habitat and find safe homes for the Mazama pocket gopher.

And this spring, biologists have been trapping and tagging the elusive Mazama pocket gopher in the South Puget Sound prairies to learn about their abundance and distribution.

Meet the Mazama Pocket Gopher

Why is the Mazama pocket gopher important to prairie ecology?

• They tunnel through the prairie soil, eating roots and bulbs and even pulling whole plants into their burrows.
   
• This tunneling helps aerate the soil, turn the dirt, and brings nutrients from the surface deep within the earth. Specifically, the gopher's digging leaves behind mounds of rich soil favored by prairie wildflowers.
   
• And the gopher's abandoned tunnels provide homes for salamanders, toads and other small denizens of the prairie.

But digging isn't the only fascinating feature of the Mazama pocket gopher:

• Its lips can be closed behind their front incisors, which the gophers use for burrowing.
   
• Its soft, loose pelt enables it to move backwards through tunnels as easily as it moves forwards.
   
• Each pocket gopher also has two, fur-lined cheek pouches extending from the lower portion of its face to its shoulders. These pouches are used to transport food, and can be turned completely inside out.

But the fragmentation and development of the gopher's prairie habitat in Washington has isolated gopher colonies from each other. Individual populations are at a greater risk of being lost.

In fact, the Mazama pocket gopher is a candidate for federal listing as endangered, and has been listed as threatened by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

What We're Learning about the Gopher

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists seeking to learn more about the species recently engaged in a monitoring program at Wolf Haven International, a wildlife sanctuary near Tenino, Washington where gophers have been relocated away from development threats.

Research scientist and biologist Gail Olson along with biologists Tammy Schmidt and Brooke Palmer set out traps among the fresh mounds for a study designed to learn more about the pocket gophers abundance and distribution on the small scale of the preserve.

Each morning, Schmidt and Palmer would set traps baited with chunks of carrot near freshly disturbed mounds on the preserve. In the afternoon, they’d return and check to see if the bait had been taken. They had a success rate of about 50 percent.

Once they found a gopher, they’d insert a Passive Integrative Transponder (PIT) tag under its skin. (A PIT is similar to the microchips used on pets.)

The scientists recorded the PIT tag location with a GPS unit and the gopher's sex and weight. That way, if they trapped the same gopher again, they would able to see whether it had moved around on the prairie or stayed in the same relative location.

It's too soon to draw any conclusions from the research, Olson said. Another field season is planned for the fall.

Nature picture credits (left to right): Photo © Robin Stanton/TNC (researchers study the pocket gopher); Photo © Ty Smedes/WDFW (Pocket gopher); Photo © Robin Stanton/TNC (Mazama pocket gopher).