Roasted Gopher or Marmot??

Crazy.kayaker

Crazy.kayaker

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Just a question to you Gopher and Marmot Hunters.

Can you eat gophers and Marmots like you do rabbits?? Also do you have to worry about rabies? Like would cooking the animal kill the rabies virus or would it not be affected by the heat.

My brother wants to go gopher and marmot hunting but I believe that you only kill what you plan on eating. Granted it would take a few gophers to make a meal *small gophers here in the Kamloops area from the ones I've seen* but if you can eat them I'd then be willing to hunt them at least so I can try the meat once.

CK
 
I'm not trying to flame you or anything, but I think you've got the wrong idea about gophers. They are pests that can do a substantial amount of damage to a farmer's/ rancher's land. People don't "hunt" them, they kill them because they are vermin like rats are. I admire your attitude about wanting to eat an animal that you have killed, but seriously, if you killed a rat in your basement, would you feel obligated to eat it?

What most people call gophers are Richardson Ground Squirrels, and I realize that what you are calling gophers is a Columbian Ground Squirrel, so maybe I'm not quite comparing apples and oranges. I'm not familiar with the BC regs, but aren't Columbian Ground Squirrels protected in BC in most areas?

The Richardson Ground Squirrels in AB and SK are currently a plague in a lot of areas. Speaking of plague, gophers have been known to carry it, along with other appetizing critters like fleas. Don't feel obligated to eat them... they are not game animals.
 
Anything that is good to eat would have a variety of recipes floating around out there. I've never seen recipes for:

- Marmot (aka Groundhog);
- Ground Squirrel; or
- Prairie Dogs.

There is a silent message there........
 
I"ve eaten grey squirrels before, and they"re ok. Just skin them, cut them in half
below the ribs, wrap them in tinfoil and throw them on the fire!
I was in the forest with nothing to eat and no way out til that night. I had a rifle and some tinfoil, and by noon anything that moved was going to get eaten!
As already mentioned, I would"nt feel obliged to eat gophers under normal conditions. Either just enjoy shooting them for fun and damage control, or go and shoot a deer!
 
Natives eat gophers up here in the spring.
I've heard that they de-fuzz them, throw them on the fire and then eat them like a corn on the cob.:D

The hunting guide has a small section in it on what they eat ie. moose nose, gophers, bum guts.

I've tried stuffed moose stomach and it was actually pretty good.:eek:
 
Pickles said:
Natives eat gophers up here in the spring.
I've heard that they de-fuzz them, throw them on the fire and then eat them like a corn on the cob.:D

The hunting guide has a small section in it on what they eat ie. moose nose, gophers, bum guts.

I've tried stuffed moose stomach and it was actually pretty good.:eek:
Click to expand...

but it's what the gophers feed upon down here that makes them downright dangerous to eat- i used to hear "stories" of people eating gopher during the dirty 30's but with the introduction of todays array of chemicals to help the farmer, it's shoot it and forget it
 
Thanks for the recipes but they are not my idea of good eating so I'd say you can but not recommended.

I should mention that I do know the gophers are vermin that destroy land. I'm not stupid but unless they are ruining my property I hold nothing against them for acting the way they have since the beginning of time. So I'm thinking I'll let those of you who enjoy killing gophers and the farmers who's land they reside in to do the KILLING of them.

Thanks for your help
CK
 
I've often wonderd about the same thing

I don't know where I heard it, but it was said that marmots in Eurasia carries the same virus as the rats did when plague happened in Europe. Up by our cottage I've seen tonnes of the critters and so in believeing in not killing what your not going to eat, I'm curious about if someone can confirm or deny the above statement.
 
Depends what you shoot em with. 22lr they may be edible. Anything i've seen taken with High Velocity calibers like 17hmr and 204 seem to explode leaving not much to eat. Also softer bullets do the same. It's hard to get a head shot at 500yards! lol
I've never eaten any but have friend at work that does often.(he eats some weird #### that he shoots) I'll ask him how he cooks em. He says he uses a 22 short at 50-100 yard ranges and the bullet never exits yet they drop dead.

Good luck and good on ya for making use of an otherwise useless pest kill.:)
 
.223 makes em a little messy for eating, but I don't know if you'd want to get close enough to "harvest" your kill. They are cannibalistic, and have no fear when under the influence of their "blood lust". I remember shooting one with my compound and when the others came for him....Well I break out in a sweat just thinkng about it. I think I have to go lay down or have a good cry now.
 
The names are confusing. So, I go to my "bible" on such things, The Mammals of BC, by Ian McTaggart Cowan.
In south eastern BC is the Columbia ground squirrel. In the north, Teslin, Dease Lake, Atlin and presumably the Yukon, is the Arctic ground squirrel. Very similar, but a hair smaller. Average total length 339 mm, as compared to 356 mm for the Columbia variety.
As has often been pointed out, in BC they are protected on all public property.
The old time prospectors that roamed the bush of BC, until about fifty years ago, ate ground squirrels, mostly roasted on a stick over a fire.
 
I've eaten most anything that you can kill in northern Canada with small arms (or a stick!). Your run-of-the-mill rodents like gophers and marmots are ususally great tasking using any recipe that you cook rabbit with. Spice gravy is an unusually nice treat with them. Classic meat-on-a-stick over an open fire is good as well, but you've got to be ready for extra gamey taste on things like weasels and beavers of you do it that way.
 
H4831 said:
The names are confusing. So, I go to my "bible" on such things, The Mammals of BC, by Ian McTaggart Cowan.
In south eastern BC is the Columbia ground squirrel. In the north, Teslin, Dease Lake, Atlin and presumably the Yukon, is the Arctic ground squirrel. Very similar, but a hair smaller. Average total length 339 mm, as compared to 356 mm for the Columbia variety.
As has often been pointed out, in BC they are protected on all public property.
The old time prospectors that roamed the bush of BC, until about fifty years ago, ate ground squirrels, mostly roasted on a stick over a fire.
Click to expand...
not sure if you have a typo there or not H4831, but they're only protected on crown lands. on private property they can be shot if they're deemed a nuisance (and it's the owner that deems whether they're a nuisance, not the gov.). same deal with the yellow bellied marmot...the hoary marmot is not to be hunted and the Van. Island marmot is endangered and protected and cannot be hunted or trapped. animals that can be shot on private lands but not crown lands are generally a Schedule B animal. others like the Grey Squirrel, Cottontail Rabbit, Starling and Cow bird are Schedule C, which is always open season (granted you have your basic hunting license).
 
knock yourself out. if i was hungry enough i would eat a gopher, but not under normal circumstances. roasted or stewed would be the way i would try it.

i have shot thousands of the columbia ground squirrel over the years. my advice if you don't want to eat them, shot them right in the middle with a 22 hollow point, they will just fall over. hit them in the chest or the head and they will do the chicken for a while. if you want to eat them, head shots are probably the only way to go.

a body shot with a 22 "solid" will allow them to go back down their hole. and leave you wondering if you are even hitting them.

it would be best to limit yourself to using a 22. something like a 223 or 22-250 will tear them right in half.

i've got one of the 300 or so jefferson's badgers in BC that frequents my fields now, so i just leave the gophers for him and rarely shot any these days.
 
If I was lost and had a gun pretty much anything I find and shot would end up over the fire. But I was looking for a possible alternative meat source that is easy to find and fun to shoot and from what I've seen so far they are not a good alternative unless starving or deciding to live off the land for a while on some back country trip. Just wondering here what would a shotgun say a 12 gage do to a gopher or a marmot loaded for rabbit of course?
 
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