That stuck out in my mind after reading it. Why not drop as many as could be had? 10 Males, 20 Females, or whatever the ratio is per adult male gopher to service. Let em go, what is the point other than “science” is there to doing it for a day then taking them away? You lost 40 years of recovery for science.
Most likely because there was nothing to eat there. They were just looking at the effect from their digging.
Yeah, but they got paid for a 40 year study.