Around here a gopher is a large rat aka Norway rat. As a boy they infested many homes and were along the ditch that ran thru our property. In those days we burned our trash in a large metal bin that had been used in my grandfather's blacksmith shop as his hearth. We then dumped the remains into the ditch that flowed past. Yeah bad but common in those days.
The gopher rats ate the food in the trash thrown out and lived in the banks of that ditch. I'd shoot them with .22 shorts and air rifles.
The critters most of you call gophers I think are more of a chipmunk or ground squirrel than a rat and I've never even seen them but have read of them.