Back to Gardening Chapter 6, Dealing With Pests - Part A: Mammals (cont...)

In this section I discuss how to identify and deal with groundhogs.

Groundhogs

Groundhogs - Also known as woodchucks, are burrowing animals that look like giant squirrels. They eat a wide range of vegetables, such as beans, peas, carrot greens, cabbage, broccoli, tomato, dandelion, and their tunneling activity can also kill plants my messing up their root systems. Groundhogs will eat a wide range of vegetables, and can completely ruin a garden. The tunnels also allow other problem animals to find their way into the garden, so they must be dealt with as soon as they appear to have found their way into the garden.

Oh they are so cute - but they will wreck your garden! (source).

Identification

A groundhog hole can just look like a hole, or look like a tiny volcano, and will be from 8 to 12 inches (~20 - 30cm) in diameter. Their large tunnels will also leave voids that can be felt when stepping on them, and can be the cause injury (e.g. broken ankle). Unlike other animals they don’t tend to leave their dropping all over the place so unfortunately that little bit of evidence is hard to find.