Operation Woodchuck Relocation! This year we've been inundated with woodchucks. At least two adult females had litters, so we have had approximately 8 or 9 of the critters bunking around the house (front and back) and dining on the lawn and garden. They did some damage to my flower beds, but mostly they have been grazing in the lawn or eating under the bird feeders. So I let them be....for a while.
But then they got over the 2-foot enclosure around my raspberry bushes, destroying the canes and getting most of the ripening berries. Even after I spent several hours adding an additional 2-foot extension to the wire enclosure, they still managed to get back in and destroy more canes.
It also occurred to me that if all 8 or 9 of these woodchucks reproduce next spring, we might as well move out! So it's time to move THEM out! We ordered a Havahart Trap and hoped for the best!
Number #1 on 7/25/17: We caught one right away , the first day we tried! It was one of the youngest babies, probably because he hadn't yet learned to be wary of the big silver enclosure with a juicy morsel of cantaloupe inside. I feel bad about moving it alone, but we only have one trap, so no chance of getting two together.
Number #2 on 7/26/17: The second one was a baby too, a sibling of the first one! Well at least they'll have each other, as we dropped the second one off in the same spot as the first.
Number #3 on 7/27/17: We put the trap back in the first location and caught #3 almost immediately, also a baby and sibling of the first two!
Later on 7/27/17, I saw one of the larger "mama" woodchucks lying in the road in front of our house, she had been hit. I thought she was dead and we were going to move her off the roadway into the brush on the side. But she wasn't dead, and leapt up when we got close and hobbled down onto the lawn and back under the bushes where her burrow is. We haven't seen her since. Don't know how badly injured she was, or if she will survive. Only time will tell.
After the mama woodchuck got hit by a car, we saw no sign of her again. We bought 2 more traps and borrowed 2 from my brother, so we have been setting a total of 5 traps every day for the past two weeks. No bites.
In the meantime, at least one of them discovered my fenced in veggie garden. On 8/6/17, I discovered the tops eaten off many of my carrots, and portions of my nasturtiums and cucumbers looked "sat on"! A few cucumbers had bites taken out of them. I picked about 10 ripe cucumbers that day! The next morning 8/7/17, Claire came to visit and while showing her my garden, she discovered at least 10 more cucumbers I had missed the day before. It's a good thing, because when I checked the cukes the next day, I found many of the vines trampled down. Good thing we got most of the ripe cucumbers!
Then on 8/9/17, around dusk, I saw one of the larger woodchucks (older juvenile) sitting on his haunches near the cucumbers, as if he were ready to climb in. I scared him off, and this morning it looks like he didn't come back. But last night we decided to leave the traps out all night, and catch whatever might be caught!
Number #4 and #5 on 8/10/17: And catch we did! This morning we caught another small juvenile on the side of the house....AND tonight we caught a larger juvenile next to my veggie garden! Two in one day, after a two-week dry spell! Woohoo!
Number #6 on 8/11/17: Wow, we're on a roll. Caught another larger juvenile this morning and relocated him!
If my count is correct there should be two more larger juveniles around and possibly the other mama! Let's see if our luck holds out!
Number #7 on 8/22/17: We saw no woodchucks at all for 7 days. Then we saw 2 of them grazing in the law late in the evening, so we started setting traps again. For the past two days, we've noticed the small trap has been moved and the bait stolen, but no trapped woodchuck. Then I actually saw a woodchuck trying to tip over one of the larger cages to get the bait. So today we anchored the traps with large flat rocks on top so they couldn't be tipped over ... and it worked! We caught #7 around noon in the small trap, and immediately took him to the same place we've taken all the rest!
We haven't seen any sign of either of the Mamas...the one that was injured in the road probably died, and we haven't see Mama "Scarback" in weeks, so hopefully she is no longer around either. But it seems we've gotten 7 of 8 young ones. Here's hoping we catch that last one before winter!
Number #8 on 9/05/17: we went about a week without seeing any more, then suddenly we saw two of them grazing in the lawn one evening, so we put the traps back out. We didn't catch anything for several days, but then the baits in one trap started going missing without catching anything. Seems the door was stuck so one of them was getting a free meal for about 3 days. Finally got that door fixed (Jake's magic touch helped!) and caught one the same day! Haha, he didn't know his fourth meal wouldn't be free!
