Four species of pocket gophers are found in Colorado. Pocket gophers reduce productivity of portions of alfalfa fields and native grasslands by 20 to 50 percent. Damage by pocket gophers can be reduced by exclusion, cultural methods and habitat modification, trapping, and toxicants applied by hand or with a burrow builder. It is the most common species in mountain rangelands and forests. However, the yellow-faced pocket gopher is confined to drier sites.
Pocket gophers attain the highest densities on light-textured soils with good herbage production.
Shallow soils limit pocket gophers due to tunnel cave-ins and poor insulation from warm summer and cold winter temperatures. Distinguishing among the four species of pocket gophers in Colorado is moderately easy. The northern and Botta's pocket gophers have smooth upper incisors with a single indistinct groove near the inner border and have smaller bodies and proportionately smaller front feet than the plains and yellow-faced pocket gophers. These two species are often difficult to tell apart. The plains pocket gopher has two distinct grooves on the front surface of each upper incisor whereas the yellow-faced pocket gopher has one distinct groove.