Mother Nature is currently accepting resumes for the following position: underground support.
Position includes long hours digging underground tunnels that will improve soil health. Ideal candidate must thrive in dark, solitary conditions. Position includes lodging and meals.
Resume: Plains Pocket Gopher
Address: 3 feet underground; middle third of Illinois, but willing to travel for perfect conditions like the sandy, well-drained soil of Evans-Judge Preserve.
Objective: To increase the aeration and health of soil by decreasing soil compaction through the digging of extensive tunnels. These tunnels allow oxygen and water to flow more freely through soil, providing improved conditions for plants and animals.
Skills: Brings own tools, including the following:
Cultivator: Two front incisors with a distinctive groove down the center grow continuously to be long, strong and sharp enough to loosen soil at all times. Sharp as scissors, they snip roots that crisscross the tunnel to clear a smooth path. May nibble the tastier ones instead of discarding.
Shovel: After the incisors loosen the dirt, oversized front claws do the hard work. No need to pack a shovel when the five curved claws on each front paw do the work of 10 shovels, clearing the tunnel for easy movement of fellow employees, water and oxygen.
Broom: Underneath the shovel-like claws are hairy toes. Unlike the soft body fur, toes are coarse and bristly, like a broom. No need to pause digging because, like a broom, they sweep the dirt away.
Backup camera: Highly sensitive, sparsely furred tail can sense what can’t be seen in the rear. Helps detect obstructions, openings to other passages or even possible predators when backing up in the tunnels.
Pockets: No need to bring a tool belt or lunchbox or wear overalls when equipped with pockets. Pouches on the outside of cheeks carry food and nesting materials, leaving paws and claws free for digging and sweeping. Pockets inside the mouth store food for on the go.
Tidy: Cleanliness is a top priority. Periodically pauses digging to push excess dirt out of the tunnel using head and forelegs. The 1 foot to 2 feet wide and 1 foot tall kidney- or fan-shaped mounds outside the tunnel contain enough dirt to fill a medium dog bed. Look for evidence of mounds in a line.
Attention to detail: After clearing the tunnel of excess dirt, the tunnel exits are sealed to keep the dirt mounds from finding their way back in with the help or wind or rain.
Hard-working: Excavates new tunnel systems spanning hundreds of yards. Football field after football field after football field could hide a single tunnel system. The amount of digging done in just one day results in three mounds of cleanup.
Words to know
Aeration: To introduce air into a material.
Bristly: Having a stiff or prickly texture.
Excavate: To make a hole by digging.
Solitary: Done or existing alone.
Sparse: Thinly dispersed or scattered.
Believes the work is never done: Looks for ways to improve the tunnels by remodeling — closing off old tunnels no longer needed and adding new ones to continue expanding.
Self-starter/works independently: Lives a solitary life, preferring to work and live alone. However, the opportunity to mate sometime from February to June is expected. However, consider this an investment as the litter of one to seven pups will be ready to join the workforce and start digging their own tunnels systems at about 2 months old.
Acrobatic skills: Able to run backwards as fast as forwards and somersault in tunnels to quickly avoid predators that would interfere with digging and reduce the workforce.
Adapted for underground survival: Eats roots, tubers and bulbs of plants growing underground throughout the tunnel, so no lunch break requested. It takes a big appetite to keep up the energy for so much digging – eating about half of body weight, or up to a half-pound, each day. May occasionally visit the surface to snack on the leaves and stems of clover, dandelions, dock and plantain.
Lips close behind incisors: This allows food to be eaten, but keeps the dirt out.
Special considerations: As the only gopher species living in Illinois, plains pocket gophers bring diversity to the underground-dwelling workforce, not to be confused with moles, voles or other potential applicants. Though they have black fur all over like their mole neighbors, they distinguish themselves with their larger size of 8 inches to 12 inches including their tail, tan or dark gray bellies and white patch under their chin like a stylish goatee. Catching sight of prairie pocket gophers or moles above ground is unlikely, but their mounds leave a clue. Mole mounds resemble volcanos, while pocket mounds are flatter.
Next steps
Interviews to take place at Evans-Judge Preserve. Visit to see examples of work, including tunnels, mounds and beautiful and diverse plant life.
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