For years I had not experienced gopher / mole / vole? etc. problems with my fig trees. For some reason (we can pretend it's global warming if we're so inclined) many of my young fig trees have been killed by having their roots eaten. I had always provided the new fig tree plants with an above ground wire cage to protect them from rabbits, deer, etc., but I never had an under-ground destruction problem. Now, I never plant any fruit tree without first lining the hole with wire mesh. Needless to say, I don't use hardware fabric or anything with too tight a weave, as I want the roots to be free to go beyond the mesh. What I found that works really well (and is very cheap) is the rolls of paperless stucco wire. It rusts out in about a year or two and doesn't inhibit the roots from going wherever they want to go. By that time, the gophers may nibble a bit but they can't destroy the entire tree (so it seems to me).
Regarding deer: if deer are eating your garden, I found that taking a bar of Irish Spring bath soap (very strong smell that I wouldn't allow in my home) is so offensive to the sensitive olfactory sensibilities of deer that they won't come near a place with a few bars handing around. I use an ice pick and poke a hole through the center of each bar of soap and then run twine through the hole. I hang the bars from the twine right at deer nostril level and haven't seen a deer in the yard since. Irish Spring soap is extremely cheap, available at many of those "less than a dollar" type stores. After dust, dirt, etc. collect on the bars, I wash them and they're good to go (for years!).