How to Find What Animal Is Digging Holes in Your Garden? Wildlife Expert Reveals
Published Jan. 3 2025, 9:45 a.m. ET
(L) Green-leafed trees in a huge garden. (R) Gopher hiding in a hole (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | (L) Lalesh Aldarwish, (R) Reagan Ross)
Sprawling garden lawns brim with life and can be difficult to maintain. Keeping track of all the animal visitors who tend to chomp on your freshly planted sapling or furrow into your rich garden soil is quite the challenge. Two wildlife experts have stepped in to enlighten with their wisdom on the type of animals that dig holes in garden beds and how to identify which one of them might be doing it. This is the first step in saving your garden from the sneaky troublemakers.
A garden lit by sunshine.
Robert Pierce, PhD, an associate professor and wildlife specialist at the University of Missouri said, “You’ll need to gather information to figure out what might be causing the damage.” He suggested that some “sleuthing” is necessary for gardeners to make sure that they are not targeting the wrong animal to be eradicated. The tactics are highly dependent on the type of damage, time of year, hole appearance, when holes usually occur, and droppings, per Southern Living.