Please do some real research before just typing stuff! Gophers(what us Floridians call them) Do Not live in shady oak tree forests. They live in open areas of sage grass, and pines and loose sandy soil. Never in my life seen a gopher hole in a shady area. Also, as someone else mentioned, many other animals use their holes for housing.
And the comment that there are more forests now than in the time of Columbus. Really? Maybe a higher number of planted trees, that's because we have obliterated lots of the natural forests. Planted pines does not constitute a forest. Here are the stats on forestation from the U.S. Forest Service...
In 1997, 302 million hectares— or 33 percent of the total land area of the United States— was in forest land. Today's forest land area amounts to about 70 percent of the area that was forested in 1630. Since 1630, about 120 million hectares of forest land have been converted to other uses—mainly agricultural.
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