Huge fat groundhog in my back yard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have two, and we coexist. They eat stuff in the garden sometimes. Humans are rampant pests, so I don't mind losing a tomato or two to a little guy just trying to survive.

+1

[Anonymous]

OP here. Wow, usually the garden forum is not quite so hopping on a Saturday morning!

Mine is out during the day all day (I can see it from my study window). I am all about co-existence but I am also about keeping my native plants alive for the pollinators and native birds that have so very little to eat.

09:40 -- I actually work in wildlife conservation as a career, so you might want to check your assumptions about why I chose to live where I do and what my goals are here -- ensuring some small part of my neighborhood provides native plant habitat.

I will look into whether trap and release is a viable option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, usually the garden forum is not quite so hopping on a Saturday morning!

Mine is out during the day all day (I can see it from my study window). I am all about co-existence but I am also about keeping my native plants alive for the pollinators and native birds that have so very little to eat.

09:40 -- I actually work in wildlife conservation as a career, so you might want to check your assumptions about why I chose to live where I do and what my goals are here -- ensuring some small part of my neighborhood provides native plant habitat.

I will look into whether trap and release is a viable option.

Groundhogs are a native species. You want to promote native species with your native plants, but only the one you were picturing when you did the planting? If a different native species benefits you will treat it as non-native simply because it's not as cute as the one you wanted to see? You're not making sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, usually the garden forum is not quite so hopping on a Saturday morning!

Mine is out during the day all day (I can see it from my study window). I am all about co-existence but I am also about keeping my native plants alive for the pollinators and native birds that have so very little to eat.

09:40 -- I actually work in wildlife conservation as a career, so you might want to check your assumptions about why I chose to live where I do and what my goals are here -- ensuring some small part of my neighborhood provides native plant habitat.

I will look into whether trap and release is a viable option.

Groundhogs are a native species. You want to promote native species with your native plants, but only the one you were picturing when you did the planting? If a different native species benefits you will treat it as non-native simply because it's not as cute as the one you wanted to see? You're not making sense.

+1

[Anonymous]

First, congratulations on creating a perfect edge of wood habitat! Groundhogs are particular about where they hang out and are never far from a burrow, which means you have great drainage.

Know that he is fat because he is stuffing himself to survive the winter without eating. Given your location, removing animals will not eliminate them anyway. So trap and release is kind of pointless.

What I do is plant specific areas of their favorites and hope that keeps them away from my favorites which would never be their first choice. For your groundhog, this means, allow the clover, buttercups, plantain, and dandelions to grow in your grass - the groundhog and rabbits will take care of it for you. Plant timothy grass or orchard grass in grouping along the woodland border. They love that.

[Anonymous]

You can trap and release if you do it yourself. A trapping service will most likely euthanize it. However even if you get rid of this groundhog chances are excellent that another one will move in if the conditions are hospitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, usually the garden forum is not quite so hopping on a Saturday morning!

Mine is out during the day all day (I can see it from my study window). I am all about co-existence but I am also about keeping my native plants alive for the pollinators and native birds that have so very little to eat.

09:40 -- I actually work in wildlife conservation as a career, so you might want to check your assumptions about why I chose to live where I do and what my goals are here -- ensuring some small part of my neighborhood provides native plant habitat.

I will look into whether trap and release is a viable option.

Groundhogs are a native species. You want to promote native species with your native plants, but only the one you were picturing when you did the planting? If a different native species benefits you will treat it as non-native simply because it's not as cute as the one you wanted to see? You're not making sense.

+1

+2

I get so excited when I see foxes, possums, raccoons, etc in my back yard in Upper NW. Not so excited when I saw a big coyote crossing the street into our neighbors yard. Cats stay in at twilight now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have two, and we coexist. They eat stuff in the garden sometimes. Humans are rampant pests, so I don't mind losing a tomato or two to a little guy just trying to survive.

I love our huge fat groundhog and we call him Henry. We also get racoons, foxes, deer and rabbits, turtles and snakes. We have gone very organic in our yard care and started to add in a lot of native plants. The maximum damage is done by rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks - so we have become very careful about how we feed our wild birds. Deers are kept away by our fence. We just coexist. I do a lot of container gardening on our deck and my flowers are not harmed. I love seeing all these critters in our yard. We also have heated water source for them for the winter. Its amazing and i feel that we are living in Eden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will want to remove the excess fat before cooking. If it is an older animal I suggest parboiling with onion and celery before breading and frying.

Great advice. Think about making groundhog gravy to.go with.

If you aren't craving groundhog, one of the traps and relocation would be a good solution.

[Anonymous]

Aww..poor dude. Post a pic.

[Anonymous]

We have had a groundhog living under the next door neighbor's shed for over 10 years now. I doubt it's the same animal but there's always one and we often see babies in spring. They love to munch on clover in our yard and drive our dog bonkers as she tries to chase them.
The only year I became enraged was when they ate all my heirloom dahlias that were just starting to bud. I had placed short tomato cages around the plants and the groundhog used these as supports to munch them down to stems. My DH thought it was vastly amusing, I was less enthralled. The dahlias now go into containers. Groundhogs still love eating everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will want to remove the excess fat before cooking. If it is an older animal I suggest parboiling with onion and celery before breading and frying.

LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two, and we coexist. They eat stuff in the garden sometimes. Humans are rampant pests, so I don't mind losing a tomato or two to a little guy just trying to survive.

I love our huge fat groundhog and we call him Henry. We also get racoons, foxes, deer and rabbits, turtles and snakes. We have gone very organic in our yard care and started to add in a lot of native plants. The maximum damage is done by rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks - so we have become very careful about how we feed our wild birds. Deers are kept away by our fence. We just coexist. I do a lot of container gardening on our deck and my flowers are not harmed. I love seeing all these critters in our yard. We also have heated water source for them for the winter. Its amazing and i feel that we are living in Eden.

Ours was Gus. Then (we think) Gus died, and Reggie and Rusty moved into his place. We love watching for them and it is amazing to see them climb the fence
The squirrels and chipmunks are much more problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Capture him and rehome him in the exburbs where people have souls.

I trapped 21 or 22 groundhogs from under my gazebo over 4 years, and would probably still be doing it if a fox hadn't moved in. I long suspected the groundhogs kept showing up because of people from the city and inner suburbs dumping their problem near me. I'm in West Bethesda near Potomac. This isn't the exurbs, but it looks like "the country" to people who live in more crowded areas.

I did what I understand to be the right thing with my trapped groundhogs, namely letting them out in McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area. There seem to be a lot of groundhogs there (I've seen them running across the fields), so when I dropped off a groundhog it may have been run off of the WMA, or caused another one to be run off into the nearby farm fields. So my problem may have become a farmer's problem. Presumably they can shoot them up there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, usually the garden forum is not quite so hopping on a Saturday morning!

Mine is out during the day all day (I can see it from my study window). I am all about co-existence but I am also about keeping my native plants alive for the pollinators and native birds that have so very little to eat.

09:40 -- I actually work in wildlife conservation as a career, so you might want to check your assumptions about why I chose to live where I do and what my goals are here -- ensuring some small part of my neighborhood provides native plant habitat.

I will look into whether trap and release is a viable option.

Groundhogs are a native species. You want to promote native species with your native plants, but only the one you were picturing when you did the planting? If a different native species benefits you will treat it as non-native simply because it's not as cute as the one you wanted to see? You're not making sense.

OP here, and I do think I'm making sense. I work in wildlife conservation, as I said, and I know a lot about the very real crises facing migratory birds, native pollinators such as bumblebees and butterflies, and other wildlife issues. I have a fenced yard to keep out deer, which are at about 10x their environment's carrying capacity. Between the overbrowse pressure of the deer eating absolutely every native plant that comes up in our area, including Rock Creek Park, and all of the invasives that people have planted because oooh, look at the pretty foliage or berries, everywhere I look it is a biological desert for native birds and native bugs. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and other rodents such as groundhogs are doing just fine overall, but many of our native birds are either already listed as federal or state endangered species or heading that way. Same with native bumblebees and likely soon the monarch butterfly.

Many native species can co-exist with people, but many more are having a harder time, to the point of facing extinction. I don't think it's irrational to try to manage my very small patch of urban habitat to provide at least some native plants as forage for the native birds that either migrate through or stay in residence all year round. Ditto for pollinators. I fence shrubs with chickenwire to protect them from the rabbits, because otherwise my yard too will be a biological desert where nothing but liriope, pachysandra, English ivy, Japanese stiltgrass, bishop's weed, and other total crap plants grow.

I really do not wish the groundhog ill, and I'm happy that my yard is suitable habitat for native wildlife. But it's not unreasonable given the very significant amounts of labor in both removing invasives and planting natives as well as the money I've put into it not to want a groundhog to come through and destroy those plants and that labor. If it looks like the fat and happy groundhog is doing a lot of damage to my natives, I will look into trapping/relocating him or her to a wildlife area -- that's a good suggestion.