Calgary park staff battle gophers with The Giant Destroyer

Bill Murray's character in the original Caddyshack had the blessings of the Dalai Lama going for him when he went to war with a nasty gopher, but Calgary's frontline assault force has something elseThe Giant Destroyer.

Calgary park staff plug up all the holes in an area, except one and then they throw in the gaseous destroyer. The gophers, properly named Richardson's ground squirrels,have two options: flee or die.

It's not necessarily popular, with the gophers or with citizens.

"We get complaints for pretty much everything we do, but people phone and complain about how we control gophers as well," said Lincoln Julie with the city's parks department.

"I would say that we're not trying to eliminate gophers completelyfrom Calgary, we're trying to co-exist. We're just trying to eliminate them from places where, let's say, a person's safety is at risk, or there's infrastructure at risk."

Wires, headstones in cemeteries and more areat risk from the subterraneanrodents, according toJulie.

"I really want to stress that the product is harmless after the gas has dissipated and it's very species specific, so it is just for trying to get rid of the gophers," he said.