Pictures and woodchucks

Mrs ERJ shows an amazing aptitude for fencing

 

Kale that overwintered

Ramps

Woodchucks

The question was asked in comments about a week ago "How do you control woodchucks?"

The short answer is "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom (from woodchucks)"

Anybody who has any experience with attempting to control any form of ubiquitous wildlife knows that reducing the local population is always a temporary solution because there are always "excess" population ready to flow in from surrounding areas.

Physical analogs include the effect that pumping water out of a single well has on the water-table level and the effect of putting an ice-cube on the top of a block of hot iron has on the temperature. Generically, these are called "diffusion phenomena".

 Cecil Farris was a hazelnut breeder who used to live in Lansing Township across from a park and a half-block from a golf-course. He controlled the population of squirrels with a pellet gun. Most years he would log between 70 and 150 squirrels.

It helped that he was on the Township board and the cops like him.

As fast as he could clobber them, more flowed in along the utility wires and fence-lines.

Fortunately for gardeners, woodchucks are not as prolific as tree squirrels, nor are they as mobile.

I have a "buffer zone" around the garden where I monitor old woodchuck holes. I sometimes throw trash like leaves or sticks into the holes (which never go straight down). If the trash gets cleaned out, I know that woodchucks are using them.

I keep the number of holes I am monitoring to a manageable number by stuffing chunks of firewood (usually box elder which is barely worth burning) into holes that are inconvenient to monitor.

I have a few 220 and 160 body-grip traps and I set them in the holes that show evidence of being used.

I also have a fence that I am installing around the salad garden. In general, woodchucks don't bother corn or potatoes or tomatoes. But they will destroy beans, greens, melons-and-squash.

"But what if I have dogs and I am afraid they might get caught in the body-grip trap?"

One alternative is to determine which holes are being used as described earlier. 

Set body-grip trap at the entrance to the hole in the usual way. 

Slide a  length of 1/2" diameter poly tubing as far down the hole as you can reach. It is better if you do not route the tubing through the trap but beside or underneath it.

Put a black, plastic bag over the hole to exclude light (and so Mr Woodchuck cannot see you). 

Pour about a cup of strong (aka, cloudy) ammonia down the length of poly tubing. A funnel is a useful tool that will minimize spilling.

If there is a woodchuck in the burrow, he/she should come blasting out in a minute or two. Of course, it might come out of a different hole, or it might come out the one where you have the trap set. If it came out of a different hole, then plug the other exit with a chunk of firewood, pull the trap and try again another day.

If nothing happens in ten minutes, then the woodchuck was probably not home and you should break-down the set-up to try another day.

It is worth your time to make a chart or a map of where the local woodchuck holes are. Michigan woodchucks are unlikely to stray more than 50 yards from a hole. BUT they love burrowing beneath old buildings and beneath concrete slabs.

Please let me know if this was helpful.