Eating Gophers

[ganderblaster]

Watching meat eater and the obsession the fellows in the states have with squirrels do you think they would be making stews out of gophers (Richardson Ground Squirrel) if they had them there.
Has anyone ate these things? Is there any history about the early pioneers to the prairies eating gophers?
I got no plans to eat either a squirrel or gopher anytime soon but I was wondering if at some point gophers were a food source or if some people eat them?

Hopefully Twisted Canuck won’t tell me to go read peace and order to a tree for bringing this up I know it’s a bit of an off the wall topic. However I am interested in the cultural differences and history. Also if things hit the fan would gophers be a survival food source?

[stc77]

I have definitely never eaten one...but I do see people feeding them in my community. Makes me wonder if they are fattening them up to use as a food source.

Originally Posted by ganderblaster

Watching meat eater and the obsession the fellows in the states have with squirrels do you think they would be making stews out of gophers (Richardson Ground Squirrel) if they had them there.
Has anyone ate these things? Is there any history about the early pioneers to the prairies eating gophers?
I got no plans to eat either a squirrel or gopher anytime soon but I was wondering if at some point gophers were a food source or if some people eat them?

Hopefully Twisted Canuck won’t tell me to go read peace and order to a tree for bringing this up I know it’s a bit of an off the wall topic. However I am interested in the cultural differences and history. Also if things hit the fan would gophers be a survival food source?

[Grizzly Adams1]

Wife's aunt homesteaded in Saskatchewan during the 30s. She claimed they pickled them for winter. Just another squirrel when you come down to it and people eat them all the time. Some people wouldn't eat suckers either, others think they're a delicacy.

Grizz

[stob]

Gopher fricassee is very good I have been told but I may never know first hand

[3blade]

I remember hearing about Indians/Inuit using them: coats made from marmot fur, lemmings and gophers as a survival food source

Wouldn’t really want to try it though. Plague, every tick/flea born disease, hanta virus, all kinds of bacteria, tetanus, all goes through rodents. While cooking would destroy them all, handling would be ill advised unless absolutely necessary.

Shot a red squirrel in summer once, wanted to skin it for fly tying material. Thing was crawling with bugs. Nope. Waited for a winter one. Still haven’t eaten one from the yard because who knows what they are eating. In the bush, I’d consider it, but I’d probably burn the fur off first.

Related topic: I ate a pigeon last year, killed out a of a grain field and roasted on a camp fire. Meat was good, skin was absolutely terrible. So you never know till you try I guess.

[Albertadiver]

Originally Posted by 3blade

Wouldn’t really want to try it though. Plague, every tick/flea born disease, hanta virus, all kinds of bacteria, tetanus, all goes through rodents. While cooking would destroy them all, handling would be ill advised unless absolutely necessary.

Hard nope from me for the same above reasons.

I've got some considerable fat reserves, and I'd probably be ok for a few months personally.

On a sort of unrelated note, I was at Prince's Island Park last spring taking an afternoon walk, and this little old lady was feeding ducks and geese. Had quite a crowd around her.

She reached down, grabbed a duck, snapped it's neck and stuffed it in her jacket so fast that had I not been directly looking at her I would have never noticed! She just casually made her way back across the river to Chinatown without a care in the world. If there's going to be a famine, I'm hanging out with that lady!

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by 3blade

Wouldn’t really want to try it though. Plague, every tick/flea born disease, hanta virus, all kinds of bacteria, tetanus, all goes through rodents. While cooking would destroy them all, handling would be ill advised unless absolutely necessary.

Not to mention the plague. Literally.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by Albertadiver

Hard nope from me for the same above reasons.

I've got some considerable fat reserves, and I'd probably be ok for a few months personally.

On a sort of unrelated note, I was at Prince's Island Park last spring taking an afternoon walk, and this little old lady was feeding ducks and geese. Had quite a crowd around her.

She reached down, grabbed a duck, snapped it's neck and stuffed it in her jacket so fast that had I not been directly looking at her I would have never noticed! She just casually made her way back across the river to Chinatown without a care in the world. If there's going to be a famine, I'm hanging out with that lady!

That's why we have Asian Carp as well. Diet is very much a cultural thing, Escargot anyone ?

Grizz

[ganderblaster]

Originally Posted by Albertadiver

Hard nope from me for the same above reasons.

I've got some considerable fat reserves, and I'd probably be ok for a few months personally.

On a sort of unrelated note, I was at Prince's Island Park last spring taking an afternoon walk, and this little old lady was feeding ducks and geese. Had quite a crowd around her.

She reached down, grabbed a duck, snapped it's neck and stuffed it in her jacket so fast that had I not been directly looking at her I would have never noticed! She just casually made her way back across the river to Chinatown without a care in the world. If there's going to be a famine, I'm hanging out with that lady!

She knows what’s up 😂. I’m not a fan eating rodents either. I do get real hungry real fast when I don’t eat though, interesting about the homesteading. Some of those big buck gophers in spring would be almost a meal for one guy. I would eat a gopher sooner then a lot of things they feed on grass and grains mainly but have also on seen them feeding on attacking other shot gophers so disease would spread fast.

I would bet they would nutritionally be good for the raw dog food diet as well.

[StiksnStrings]

I grew up in southern Ont. and grey squirrels were a regular target for me. The meat was delicious. So when I moved here gophers interested me, then I did a little research and haven't yet been hungry enough to try them.

[35 whelen]

I have some extra elk meat ,no need to eat rodents

[tikka250]

With gophers being cannibals I would eat coyote before I ate gopher. Can't recall what extra diseases they carry because of that fact but I know it's not a good one.

[sns2]

Gander, any mice I get this summer in the garage, I will chuck em in a bag for you. Gopher? Mice? No real difference.

[270person]

I'd rather eat the ring out of a dead skunk.

[waldedw]

After I hit them with the 17 HMR they are usually partially skinned already and gutted, just throw them in the stew pot and boil the sh out of them

[-JR-]

When I was around 10-13 years old hunting gophers around rainbow valley was a big hobby for a large group of use. A few of use would skin them but never would eat them. I guess thats when i started hunting . Too be young again !

[RockyMountainMusic]

Originally Posted by ganderblaster

Watching meat eater and the obsession the fellows in the states have with squirrels do you think they would be making stews out of gophers (Richardson Ground Squirrel) if they had them there.
Has anyone ate these things? Is there any history about the early pioneers to the prairies eating gophers?
I got no plans to eat either a squirrel or gopher anytime soon but I was wondering if at some point gophers were a food source or if some people eat them?

Hopefully Twisted Canuck won’t tell me to go read peace and order to a tree for bringing this up I know it’s a bit of an off the wall topic. However I am interested in the cultural differences and history. Also if things hit the fan would gophers be a survival food source?

My wifes family eats them every year and has since the beginning of time lol, they mostly only eat green grass if you watch them. Its a pass for me because like porcupine they singe the hair off and boil them and I'm a bbq kind of guy not boiled meat lol. I have eaten a red squirrel before and not much meat but wasn't that bad lol My wifes elders love it when my wife and kids trap them and bring them gophers(richardson ground squirrel).. To each their own but it sure won't kill you!

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by RockyMountainMusic

My wifes family eats them every year and has since the beginning of time lol, they mostly only eat green grass if you watch them. Its a pass for me because like porcupine they singe the hair off and boil them and I'm a bbq kind of guy not boiled meat lol. I have eaten a red squirrel before and not much meat but wasn't that bad lol My wifes elders love it when my wife and kids trap them and bring them gophers(richardson ground squirrel).. To each their own but it sure won't kill you!

The skins made traditional garments as well. Us Whiteys used to do the same with hamsters.

Grizz

[tool]

Third hand information but a friend that was an Alberta meat inspector told me that some of the immigrant workers at some Calgary area meat plants were eating them. He said they described them as “stinky” and “no good”.

I had a big Maine Coone cat years ago that used to kill and eat a ton of them, mid summer he would be very bedraggled looking. Vet said it was because gophers are loaded with parasites.

We’d treat him and he’d be much better looking by fall again.

[that dude]

I have a friend who tried it out of sheer curiosity, he said he wouldn't try it again! When I shoot them I can often stay in one spot as they tend to come and start chomping on the growing pile of dead gophers - for that reason alone I would have a hard time ever eating one.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by that dude

I have a friend who tried it out of sheer curiosity, he said he wouldn't try it again! When I shoot them I can often stay in one spot as they tend to come and start chomping on the growing pile of dead gophers - for that reason alone I would have a hard time ever eating one.

Chickens are canabalistic as well.

Grizz

[muirsy]

I would have to be about 5 years into an apocalypse to eat a gopher.

[IronNoggin]

Eaten loads of squirrels. They are great!

When I was a kid, I took in a couple Outward Bound survival courses.
During one of those I killed, then ate a couple gophers.
Survival food it is.
I would not intentionally do so today.

Nog

[Twobucks]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

Wife's aunt homesteaded in Saskatchewan during the 30s. She claimed they pickled them for winter. Just another squirrel when you come down to it and people eat them all the time. Some people wouldn't eat suckers either, others think they're a delicacy.

Grizz

My grandfather lived around Turtle Lake until the late 1920’s and he said he met native women in the fields who would snare them all the time for eating.

The “Long ago man found” iceman from Northern BC was wearing a coat made of ground squirrel furs as I recall.

[KGB]

Jeeses guys, I know times are tough now with inflation, food prices etc but…. I would stop using the toilette paper before I eat a gopher!

[270person]

Originally Posted by KGB

Jeeses guys, I know times are tough now with inflation, food prices etc but…. I would stop using the toilette paper before I eat a gopher!

Or, you could sub a gopher FOR toilet paper.

[ganderblaster]

I would sooner eat a gopher then a bear I think lol. I just see gophers through my scope a lot grazing grass and stuff all clean and cute. Bow hunting with judos a man gets the smell of the gophers digestive system entrenched in the memory amd yes it smells much better then the chicken digestive system.

[pikergolf]

I just take the loins, awesome in stir fry. A bit wasteful but they are considered pests.

[TrapperMike]

Had a old neighbor who used to eat them on a weekly basis. Got my curiosity going so my buddy and I cooked up a batch in the oven. Used shake and bake. They were quite tasty, kind of like Hungarian partridge. Would have no problem with eating them again. All depends on how they are prepared. Found this at no frills.

[Ackleyman]

Eating a rodent ? maybe throw in some fried cow sheet for a side. Ummm yum.