Posted by Janet Harriett on Feb.10, 2010

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons User R6MaY89

Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, range through most of the eastern United States. Last week, Wildlife Wednesday introduced groundhogs and looked at the origins of Groundhog Day. This week, take a look at the family life of groundhogs and facts beyond their supposed weather-predicting prowess.

Groundhog Family Life

Groundhogs live about 2-6 years in the wild, so they tend to start reproducing early, most commonly the year after they are born. Around March or April, shortly after groundhogs come out of hibernation, they seek out a mate. Usually, the males leave their home dens and go in search of a female. The mated pair shares the female’s home den for much of the monthlong gestation period, but the male leaves and returns to his home den before the young, called cubs, are born and takes no part in raising the young groundhogs.

A litter has 2-6 cubs who are born alatricial (immature, blind, hairless and unable to forage or hunt on their own). Snakes are a major predation threat to young groundhogs, even though they tend to stay in the burrow for the first 6-7 weeks. When the cubs first start venturing out of their dens, they enter a period of high mortality as their inexperience often gives predators like foxes, coyotes, wolves and birds of prey.

When young groundhogs are a couple of months old, they start spending more time outside the burrow. By midsummer, when groundhogs start eating in earnest to prepare for hibernation, young woodchucks start digging experimental burrows near their birth dens. By autumn, the young are independent and move on to establish dens of their own for the winter hibernation.

Woodchuck Trivia

Woodchucks live on the site of Fermilab, a 6,800-acre physics research facility in Batavia, Illinois. The groundhogs that dig burrows into the earthworks around the particle collider are relocated with live traps to distant parts of the Fermilab grounds, and woodchucks are featured on the Fermilab nature trail.

Groundhogs eat clover, alfalfa, dandelions, berries and, as many backyard gardeners can attest, garden vegetables. They will occasionally eat grubs or insects, but not as often as other sciurids (rodents related to squirrels) do.

Groundhogs can climb trees and swim. They may climb trees to escape predators or to get tree fruits like apples.

Though woodchucks are more or less solitary animals and don’t live in packs or organized communities, they do emit a loud whistle to alert other nearby groundhogs of dangers. This has earned them one of their other common names, whistle-pig.

Even with the high cub mortality rate and sport hunting, groundhog populations are estimated to be larger now than at the onset of European settlement of North America.

The oldest groundhog on record was Wiarton Willie, who died at age 22. As with most animals, the lifespan in captivity far exceeds the average lifespan in the wild, since captive groundhogs lack predators, have an abundant food supply and receive veterinary care.

Captive groundhogs generally don’t enter full hibernation like their wild counterparts, but do become more lethargic over the winter.

So, How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

Woodchucks don’t chuck a lot of wood, but they are powerful diggers, and chuck a lot of dirt quickly when excavating a burrow. A researcher at Cornell University once calculated the volume of an average groundhog burrow and concluded that a woodchuck could chuck about 700 pounds.

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Posted under Living, Nature and Environment.