We won't find out until we grow

[austin_dern]

We've got tenants.

At least, that's my cheery, Snoopy-esque view of it. [ Oh, I should've found the Peanuts where he gets his tenants and linked to it. Ah well. ] One morning I walked out the front door and found a lot of dirt on the sidewalk, including a small mound partly burying the watering can. There was a good-sized hole, flush against the side of the house. The burrowing creature showed a touch of art, too: the hole was dug underneath an empty bowl, with the bowl's edges resting on the side of the house and a potted plant, so it had a loose, elevated position, like a 60s public performance space's ceiling.

Coming back from yoga a couple days later I saw what dug it: a groundhog. It's a smaller model one, about rabbit-sized (my guess about the burrow-digger was a rabbit), and was at least as startled to see me as I was to see it. It darted for the hole faster than I figured on groundhogs moving.

My father tried simply filling in the hole, but the groundhog re-excavated it. He tried again and the groundhog was not to be deterred. By the fifth time my sister-in-law was pointing out the county will lend humane traps for relocating the animal. I was delighted with the determination of nature to make a home in a decent enough spot. My father's current strategy is putting pavement tiles over the hole so as to force the groundhog to try again a foot or two down the way.

We shall see who comes out ahead.

Trivia: Animator Walter Lantz studied, and played with, the giant panda Su-Lin in Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, in the late 1930s, a visit recorded by Universal newsreels. During playing the panda swiped his $200 cashmere coat. Lantz used the study to create Andy Panda. Source: The Walter Lantz Story, Joe Adamson.

Currently Reading: Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story Of USO Hostesses During World War II, Meghan K Winchell. It's more academic than I figured, so while there are segments of interviews from USO hostesses, there's not that pesky narrative to give guidance to people who know the USO mostly from old time radio references.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I worry that it will be trapped or crushed under a paving stone.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm not concerned about crushed --- the stones aren't that heavy and there's not that far for them to fall --- but trapped does worry me.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

My recommendation is the same: live trap it and move it far away. Woodchucks are somewhat cute, but are voracious and destructive feeders.

(my guess about the burrow-digger was a rabbit: Eastern Cottontails aren't known to burrow)

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I'm reluctant to recommend live trapping, with species I don't know well, because in certain species I do know well, relocating the animal makes people feel better but is probably nearly as deadly as killing it outright, and crueler. I don't know whether that's the case with woodchucks or not, but I can't imagine throwing an animal into a territory where it hasn't staked a claim or learned where the resources are ever goes especially well for it.

Woodchucks did in fact live on our property when I was in high school and we had no bother from them and enjoyed watching them.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

I tried to live trap a woodchuck here without success: my garden was far more attractive than the baited cage. This was the only animal I consciously killed, and my poor aim made it a drawn out affair.

I feel it's better to give the animal Nature's chance rather than kill it. She moved into my garden readily enough, she can have the option to do so again in another, similar habitat (sans my garden).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

My inclination is to let animals be where they choose to be, at least outside the house. I'd try to take them safely outside the attic or basement or such. This seems like a borderline case. Digging under the foundation should be discouraged, but if it's just under the patio that ... doesn't seem too menacing to me.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's what worries me about trap-and-release programs. I'm curious whether they've been studied for what's good for the animals, really.

There's spots remarkably near where they could be safely released. Ringing the lake behind the house are a healthy number of groundhog holes. There are good swaths of lakefront that don't have any obvious holes; I don't know just how far the burrowing might go, but it seems like a mutually safe environment could be as little as a hundred feet away.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Of course, moving an animal a short distance won't do any good, because if it's already decided it likes the spot it's chosen by your house, it will just return.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Alas, there is that.

I suppose some of it enters into groundhog psychology: did it pick that spot because it was the best in the area, or because it was one spot which satisfied its needs? If the latter, then making it a bit less appealing should be enough to send it somewhere else. If the former, then it would take a lot of work to make it pick another spot.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Actually, studies have been done, and they generally find high mortality for "translocated" (as they call it) animals. I was just looking at a paper in the Wildlife Society Bulletin that reviewed the literature (this was ten years ago, though I'd be surprised if much has changed) and it was generally pessimistic. Raccoons, for instance, were found to have a 50% mortality three months after release, with the authors estimating that the true mortality was probably as high as 75% given that some of the individuals had lost weight during a time of year they should have been gaining weight. [1]

If your family is considering relocating the woodchuck, I would say it must be done immediately if it is to be done before winter, because woodchucks have to fatten themselves considerably to make it through hibernation. I imagine that the process of staking a new territory is energy-intensive and fall is a bad time to be doing it.

As for the paving stone: exclusion of animals is always considered the best option (and is promoted as such in the article I was just reading in preference to translocation) and so the stones may be a good idea but of course it would be important to make sure the woodchuck is not in the hole at the time.

[1] Being an academic I feel compelled to footnote this, so here you go. Scott Craven, Thomas Barnes, and Gary Kania. "Toward a Professional Position on the Translocation of Problem Wildlife." Wildlife Society Bulletin 26.1 (Spring 1998): 171-7.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yikes. That's not a bad survival profile, that's a catastrophic one. I had no idea it was that bad.

I haven't spotted the groundhog since the stones went in, but then my first encounter was a coincidental one. I think I will scout the area tomorrow for any burrows that look new, though. (Given the late hurricane, I went around the pond, and so got an idea of the lakefront burrows, so this is actually something I could do.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, huh, yeah. I didn't think to actually think about what the species are like.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Andy Panda comics... hehe... and that funny budgie/pigeon character!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that bird. I'd forgot him somehow. Well, not somehow; it's been a while since the cartoons were on. But, still; I used to be really, really into Walter Lantz cartoons.