Do You think it necessary to kill groundhogs instead of relocating them?

@dvmurphy (326)
United States
September 13, 2007 6:23pm CST
I discovered an animal living under my yard barn nearly seven years ago. It turned out to be a woodchuck better known as a whistle pig or ground hog. It lives under my yard barn during the winter and hybernates. In the spring she has a litter of four cubs. As soon as they are old enough she moves them back into the wild countryside. My ground hog lays out in my grassy yard with my wild cats and they never bother each other. It eats walnuts with the squirrels and generally doesn't bother anything but she does tend to dig tunnels here and there. Ground hogs have been part of this property for fourteen years. I don't feed them. I just let them alone. I notice on the internet yesterday that a new housing develpoment, I believe it was in Maryland, displaced an entire colony of these little guys. I read the article over and was amazed they thought these gentle animals weere dangerous and even carried rabies. A cat, dog, etc can carry rabies but that doesn't mean we round them all up and kill them. That is the plan. They are planning on live trapping these ground hogs and taking them to another location. The residents of the new housing development were fine with that until they discovered the plan doesn't stop there. The ground hogs are to be trapped alive to be not relocated but taken to another area and shot to death! An outraged cry soon was heard from the residents. They didn't want them killed just released to a new environment away from their homes. the DNR who is removing the animals said they couldn't just release them into a new area as it could upset the balance of nature in that area. Excuse me, but didn't man just upset the balance of nature with the housing develpoment evicting the ground hogs from their natural environment. I live with my ground hogs and they don't bother anything.
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