WRITTEN BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD
Picture your home as the opening scene of an animated film. It’s a beautiful spring day, and as you stand on your deck with a mug of steaming coffee, you survey your property. The grass is lush and full of clover. Trees and shrubs are leafed out, providing shade and privacy. The vegetable seedlings you planted in raised beds are growing strong. You sigh in contentment.
Now the camera cuts to a different point of view: A young groundhog standing on its hind legs scopes out your property. Look at all that clover. There’s coneflower and phlox over there. Delicious. And are those beans growing on the trellis? The groundhog’s eyes widen with excitement when it spies the pièce de résistance: a shed resting on concrete blocks — the perfect protective roof for a burrow entrance.
Like people, groundhogs look for particular things when choosing a home. A place that provides easy access to food and a protected living area is prime real estate, said Randy Canarr, owner of Maine Wildlife Management in Winterport. The same features that make your home appealing to you also make it appealing to groundhogs, also known as woodchucks.
“You have a beautiful habitat that the groundhogs love,” he said.
And they’re willing to put up with less desirable neighbors — us — to live there.
Even if you have a live-and-let-live attitude, having groundhogs on your property can be problematic, especially when they burrow beneath the slab foundation of a home, garage, or other structure. While state law allows property owners to kill groundhogs causing damage, there are several ways to make your property less attractive to them and discourage them from settling in.
Make food harder to reach
Add a fence around gardens, making sure to bury hardware cloth 12 to 18 inches deep to prevent groundhogs from digging underneath, said Griffin Dill, an integrated pest management professional with University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Clean up fallen fruit and produce, and if you compost, use an enclosed bin rather than an open pile.
Protect buildings
Canarr recommends burying hardware cloth in an L-shape around vulnerable structures such as decks, sheds, and foundations. The barrier can help keep groundhogs from burrowing underneath.
Seal abandoned burrows
Groundhogs sometimes rotate among several burrows from year to year, Dill said, creating an opportunity to close unused entrances. Before filling holes with soil and rocks, make sure no animals are inside. Lightly block entrances with crumpled newspaper or a small pile of leaves and check over several days to see whether the material has been disturbed.
Skip miracle repellents
Ammonia-soaked or coyote-scented rags may deter groundhogs temporarily, but they quickly become accustomed to them, Canarr and Dill said. While mothballs are often recommended, Dill noted that they are registered pesticides and are not labeled for use as wildlife repellents.
Don’t rely on relocation
Trapping and moving groundhogs may seem like a humane solution, but it often is not — for either the animal or the homeowner.
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” Canarr said.
Without addressing what attracted the groundhog in the first place, another one is likely to move in. Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife discourages relocating wildlife because of the potential for conflicts, disease transmission, and other concerns, Dill said.
Some of these solutions can be expensive, labor-intensive, or impractical, depending on the situation. In many cases, a little discouragement may be enough. Rather than jumping immediately to expensive solutions, Canarr recommends starting with simple habitat modifications and adding more intensive measures only if they’re needed.