For the past 10 years we’ve had a terrible problem with groundhogs tearing up our backyard and gardens. They’ve destroyed two garden sheds, an outdoor storage box, ruined numerous vegetable gardens, damaged our swimming pool and dig all kinds of tunnels throughout our yard. Heck, 3 years ago I fell in a tunnel and fractured a bone in my foot!
In our neighborhood gophers outnumber humans by at least 10 to 1. I’m not kidding about that! They have no natural predators around here other than our one neighbor’s dogs. That’s it. Oh, and the occasional vehicle that may run one or two over every year by accident. Other than that, they’ve taken over and run the neighborhood.
It’s gotten so bad that a few of us contacted our township on what we could do about it. They recommended humanely trapping them and relocating them to a new home. You just can’t trap and release anywhere you want. You must obtain permission and they will guide you on release sites that they approve of.
We invested in a humane animal trap made for medium sized mammals and got busy. Earlier this summer we trapped a possum in it which we did release in a new area. Since then…we’ve successfully trapped and released 4 groundhogs. We still have at least 6 more that are tearing up our 1/2 acre of land. I don’t mind sharing my spot with 1-2 of them…but when you hit over a dozen of them it’s way too much!
For the groundhogs…I’ve found that they love to eat a combination of things so I whip up what I call Shelly’s Special: chopped up cantaloupe & watermelon rinds, apple cores & peels and cucumbers (chopped up along with peels). They go CRAZY for the cantaloupe and watermelon rinds for sure! You want to chop them up into bite size pieces and make a nice pile of them in the back of your cage. Set it, walk away.
The township also gave us another piece of advice. Every 3-4 days to change the location of our trap. Move it all around the yard. Groundhogs are smart and if they see one of their buddies get caught, they avoid that spot for awhile. So, move your trap every few days to continue your trapping success.
We love animals so we don’t believe in killing them. They have the right to be here on earth, just not ripping up my backyard!
* This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, we may or may not receive a small commission which helps to support this site. Thank you!
I found this article to be very informative. I did not realize how smart groundhogs could be. I hope you wil be able to trap and release them elsewhere.