Posted by Janet Harriett on Feb.24, 2010

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons User R6MaY89

Last week, Wildlife Wednesday took an up-close look at the benefits groundhogs can have in a yard, both for their ecological impact and the fun of watching wildlife. As with any non-disease-carrying wildlife in the yard, if a groundhog isn’t causing a problem, the best strategy is to live and let live.

As a rule, in any battle between humans and wildlife, the animals will win; they simply have more time to devote to the fight. However, not all groundhogs are quite as trouble-free as mine, especially if they get into the backyard garden. Groundhogs start fattening up for their winter hibernation right around the time most garden produce is at its peak, and woodchucks, like most foraging animals, look at a garden as a convenient source of high-quality food. Groundhog burrows under a home, deck or outbuilding can also cause structural damage and undermine a building’s foundations. Those 700 pounds of dirt that the woodchuck chucks out of its burrow don’t hold anything up when they’re piled on the grass. When a groundhog starts causing problems, it’s time for action.

You can try repellents and fencing to keep the groundhogs out, but those measures rarely work for long on a truly insistent woodchuck. A woodchuck-resistant fence has to keep them from climbing over or digging under. This generally requires fences to be about 4 feet above ground, with another 2 feet of fencing buried so it goes 1 foot straight down, makes a 90-degree L shape and extends a foot out from the fenceline. Even then, most gardeners and homeowners find an electric hot wire outside the fenced area is necessary, which can be problematic with children playing near or helping in the garden, to say the least.

Unless you’re willing to kill the groundhog, relocation is often your best bet when dealing with a pest groundhog. Contact your state department of fish and wildlife to determine if groundhog relocation is legal in your state. Never try to relocate groundhogs when there may be young in the den dependent on an adult for food.

If relocation is an option, you may be able to do it yourself with a humane live trap like Havahart, but hiring a wildlife relocation expert-often an exterminator who also does live catch and release-will ensure the most successful results with minimal stress to you or the woodchuck. Groundhogs need to be moved at least five miles to keep them from coming back, and the release location needs to be somewhere the groundhog will be welcomed. You don’t want to drop your wildlife problem on someone else’s doorstep, but many people like to watch groundhogs forage.

Once the groundhog is gone, fill in the burrow well. You may want to bury wire mesh over the top of the former burrow entrance to discourage an animal from re-excavating it. If you leave an empty burrow, another groundhog or burrowing animal will likely move in to fill the void. If a groundhog is a pest, you definitely don’t want a skunk taking its place!

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Posted under Living, Nature and Environment.