Our neighborhood is infested with the savage beasts. Here’s one that I, mighty hunter, captured today.
We took it for a little ride, and released it down by the river.
Action sequence! Watch its little butt as it scurries off into the underbrush.
Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Another day, another groundhog
Another day? I thought it was supposed to be the same day. Again. Again. Again. Again…
He’ll be back.
Cool, what did you use as bait in the trap?
Doesn’t that hellbeast of a cat you have scare off any furry intruders? Put that freeloading feline to work, I say!
It cannot even get rid of a poopyhead, and you expect it to deal with something serious, like a groundhog?
Seems like a lost revenue stream when you could train them to sit really still and sell em to Trump as hairpieces, at least then some of that Trump loot would go to a good cause.
blf@5,
The poopyhead knows how to work a can opener, and thus has utility to the cat.
nelliebly@6, What did a groundhog ever do to you to deserve that fate?
Did she enjoy the carrots?
They’re actually quite cute, though I have no idea if they make good pets. Or dinner for that matter.
I hope Chuck appreciates his luck that he turned up in your yard instead of some farmer’s field…
How much meat is there on one of those? Do they taste good when roasted with shallots, tomatoes, peppers and red wine?
That’s what I’m thinking as well. Chubby little critters, could be a decent meal.
You didn’t do any tagging to see if the groundhog will return to their previous area? Doesn’t help the neighborhood if they reappear within a week.
They probably taste like squirrel. Or chicken.
The intertubes say, yes, you can eat them if you don’t mind eating rodent. According to the Ppppfff you can raise them, but they are aggressive. (And the Staten Island Zoo has a groundhog trainer!)
I believe there was an episode of Kitchen Nightmares where the restaurant’s claim to fame was groundhog, and it was served to Gordon Ramsay. He was less than impressed.
Didn’t New Orleans (or perhaps another city in that region) have a plague of Nutria in the neighboring wetlands, and organize a contest among the chefs of the city, to see who might find a way to make Nutria edible? A local hunter’s club agreed to supply whole Nutria cleaned and dressed, for the chefs to experiment with. As I recall, the meat had a strong flavor which could be made palatable with enough added spices. I’ll bet there are recipes for groundhog somewhere on the Internet, it is not normally served because there is no steady supply of carcasses.
In Texas (I know) with a retention pond across the street, and a pool in back forty, we have met many creatures. When my son, a strong swimmer at three, called me over to the pool, there was a lobster-sized “crawdad” (weird) swimming backwards. We have had a frog plague. Oops,prophecy denied. We had a baby snapping turtle that we returned. I swear, the next year, without evidence, he was here again. I won’t mention the snake that infiltrated the back door. Sleep sweet.
A word of advice. With winter coming you may want to hold off on relocating the groundhogs until early spring. They probably have a burrow on or near your property, but if you trap them in winter and take them somewhere else they may die of exposure because the ground will be too hard for them to dig another burrow.
So, John, your soultion is death?
These creatures are more dangerous than you might think!
The following is a true story:
Three years ago, after a heavy rainstorm, I ran out to my van to drive to an appointment. The car behaved erratically, speeding and slowing on its own, and I had to keep the engine revved to keep going. On the way back, I stopped into an auto parts store to check it out, opened the hood, and there it was: The Angry Groundhog from Heck!
It had climbed into the engine compartment after its burrow flooded, and climbed atop the warm engine. It stayed there, atop the hot engine, as I drove 10 miles to the doctor’s, and 10 miles back. It ripped out the insulation from the hood, and chewed through the sheath of the throttle cable. When I opened the hood, it was atop the battery, and the hinge trapped it in place.
Many an auto parts customer asked, What the hell is that thing?, Is it badger?, until the animal control person came. She turned out to be the niece of a friend, and took the creature outside of town to start a new life, while I took pictures. Those came in handy when State Farm said, How do you know an animal did this? I texted them the photos of this creature pre- and post-liberation (it was unharmed, just irritated), and they paid the claim in full.
It’s a whistlepig! (That name makes me giggle every time.)