Maybe just grow more melons and have a covered patch. Killing animals, or trapping to move doesn't work. Poisoning animals is sick because that put other animals at risk. We are not alone in the world and everyone is part of an ecosystem. Maybe try to enjoy nature and not try be a game warden. Just a suggestion.

I fence what I can and use critter repellent too. I live in town.

When I had big garden beds in the country, the woodchucks tunneled so deep and from so far I never found the exit, just the happy entrance in the very middle of my garden, neatly hidden under my lima beans. They are clever.

You are not going to catch and rehabilitate ground hogs. Real life game wardens will tell you
do not move them because there is no place that doesn’t already have a population of
ground hogs in Ohio and the introduction of new ones into an area cause problems such as the
spread of diseases and fighting. Also dairy, beef, and horse operations don’t want them because
of the holes that they dig causes animals to break their legs after which the animal will need
to be “put down.”

This one besides getting into my gardens was digging under my house and a shed too.
I might be a liberal but I’m not stupid and I don’t want a family of ground hogs living under
my house.

I know something about wildlife management, too, but I can’t kill them outright. I move them to as close a bit of undeveloped habitat as I can find.

That's it, just a laugh.

Now that you caught it, you have to figure out a way to make sure he doesn't come back.

Last edited Sat Jul 26, 2025, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Already did what needed to be done and that was a .22 sub sonic bullet into it.
A nice little round, that is quite, and kills the animal in less than a minute. The
slug breaks into 3 pieces and doesn’t in most cases exit the animal’s body.

the enjoy nature, trap and release fool yourself folks. If they only knew how cruel and vicious nature really can be or what happens to the cute little vermin they dump out in strange locations.

closing the trap @ sundown eliminates most of these critters

*. Feral cats are huge problem too. Their hunting instincts are so strong they start killing
the minute they are outside killing invertebrates, pollinators, native bees, butterflies,
reptiles, amphibians, native birds, and native animals. And some of my neighbors feed
them and don’t catch them and have them fixed.

But they always came back in a day or two. I quit after going 10 miles only to have the bastard back in 2 days. And then after our rabies incident in 2020 they just go bye permanently. Don't care. Not rare, endless supply, rabies, stink. Skunks, rats, mice. scorpions, and rattlesnakes close to headquarters are just terminated. Everything else is fine or can at least have a chance. Even rock squirrels, though they do need thinning occasionally.

I have thinned them out greatly but still we have tons of them some of my liberal neighbors
don’t like to use bait because they are worried about the feral cats eating the rat bodies with
the rat poison inside the rat corpse.

I have devoted much of my life to nature and ecological restoration and people don’t get that
we need human actions to help biodiversity and agriculture.

When I was 20 in S.E. Ohio @ Ohio U. I had some friends who were in the Ohio National Guard
and one of them was a local good old boy and we lived @ the edge of town and when the subject
of ground hogs and we had one living under our house came up and he looked @ me and said, “Son
you are gonna have to shoot it.” To which I said it isn’t doing anything its fine to which he said,
“So you are going to have to shoot it” and walked away. And when I saw him few weeks later I told him
him he was right I had to shoot it. The little fucker was eating my marijuana plants.

I was taking an evening walk and spotted a king snake lying on the unpaved road.

They are non-venomous and are “cleaners”.

That said, I continue to catch small rodents in paint bucket traps. Can’t say the same for the ‘hogs.

GO (away) GROUNDHOGS.

They have been the bane of my existence for 4 years. I've decided that the only thing I can do is try to protect my property.

Mr. Groundhog decided to take up residence under our backyard deck. He then married and brought his bride to live with him. As these things go, there was soon a litter of little groundhoglets.

We tried everything; flooding the burrow, filling the burrow with concrete slurry, dry ice in the burrow. No luck at all. I bought a trap, baited it and waited. We trapped and relocated possums, raccoons, foxes, and 8 groundhogs. Fast forward to this spring and, yes indeed, more groundhogs.

I should add that my backyard neighbor, a lovely woman who i truly like as a neighbor, loves wildlife and loves to feed them. This did not help my situation at all.

The final solution, since we live in an incorporated area and can't shoot anything, was to trench around the inner perimeter of the deck 24" deep and put heavy duty metal mesh from the bottom of the hole to the framing around the decking. Added to this expense was the money we had to spend to repair the poured concrete foundation of the house. Apparently, this is common groundhoug activity when they are digging and encounter a permanent barrier like a foundation.

I hate groundhogs.

Or hire a critter control company.