How to Handle Groundhogs, Raccoons & Other Wildlife
A few years back, we answered (or tried to answer) a listener with groundhog problems. She hired professional trappers, and they had captured a few; at a hundred and seventy-five bucks per woodchuck! They had also captured an opossum and a raccoon, and I warned that while opossums are kind of beneficial, as they eat mice and rats; raccoons are anything but beneficial. They are a prime vector for rabies, and their fecal material alone is tremendously dangerous to humans and pets when inhaled, as it contains numerous disease and parasitic organisms, including roundworm.
(I confirmed this through lots of research and by watching a terrifying episode of a PBS documentary from Sweden, the memory of which still gives me the willies. I advise you to take my word for it, because if you look it up, you’ll be showering every twenty minutes.)
And so, Tip #1: Do not sweep out the family cabin you use once or twice a year; wear a mask and use a vacuum with a HEPA filter to do the cleanup instead, and be sure to wear a mask when you dispose of the contents. Then dispose of the masks and wash your hair and clothes.
You should also wear serious respiratory protection if any signs of raccoons are present. (Their scat is VERY distinctive; you should look it up so you know it when you see it. In fact, you should learn to recognize the scat and footprints of all the wild animals commonly found in your area. It’s informative! It’s educational! It makes a great conversation starter at parties!) Well maybe not that last part…
Anyway, every season, we get a LOT of emails from people who plan to ‘live trap’ a pest mammal that’s eating their garden and then {quote} ‘release it elsewhere”. News Flash: There IS no ‘elsewhere’! Captured racoons should ALWAYS be professionally euthanized, as moving the animal to another location would only give the problem to someone else or cause the raccoon to suffer a long and painful death, as studies have shown that almost all relocated mammals (including groundhogs) are not successful in their new site.
And relocation is also illegal in many states, as frequent listener and advisor Tom in Nazareth Pa reminded us by writing “Good advice about why not to try relocation, but were you aware that it is also against the law in PA to relocate groundhogs? Thought you should know.” Turns out that it’s against the law in many other states and locales as well.
And from the department of piling on: the PA Game Commission adds that raccoons, groundhogs and foxes are rabies vector species (skunks too) and should not be relocated. VERY IMPORTANT: If you try to ‘catch and release’ any of these animals and are scratched or bitten, you need to see a communicable disease specialist ASAP, no matter how harmless it looks. Rabies is nasty.
Let’s drop back to the advice I delivered when I first tackled this question (specifically about groundhogs) several years ago. I passed on the old folk advice to pour used kitty litter down groundhog holes (after separating out the feces) as groundhogs are very fastidious creatures and will not reuse a lair that stinks of cat urine. (Neither would I.)
Yes, they’ll start to dig another run nearby. Let them work on it for a few days and then soil that one too. It has been my experience, and that of many others who have taken this advice, that the animals then move on, but they move on to a place of THEIR CHOICE--which means that you won’t accidentally pick a totally inappropriate new location where they wouldn’t have a decent chance of survival. (You also won’t be breaking the law, which is always a plus.)
After dishing out that suggestion, we also heard from Jill in “Wild and wonderful West Virginia” who let me know that she had loved that part of my advice, but NOT how I suggested getting rid of the {ahem} ‘solid material’ in the kitty litter.
She wrote: “I LOVE your program. But on a recent show you recommended using used cat litter after it had been thoroughly saturated with urine to discourage groundhogs. Fabulous suggestion! But PLEASE retract the part where you said to flush the leftover solid material down the toilet.
She quotes from a respected resource: “The Toxoplasmosis parasite found in cat feces is killing many of the ocean’s highly endangered sea otters, along with dolphins, whales, manatees, walruses, sea lions, and seals…”
Furthermore, “the parasite has been found in other marine life that are part of the food chain. It is ingested as part of that chain and passed along to other animals, including humans. Most people are not aware of how lethal the practice of flushing cat feces is to marine life. I even had to educate my own Mother! She has lived on the coast in southern Florida for 25+ years and had no idea of the consequences. I had assumed that there would be heightened awareness of this problem in a coastal region. Boy was I ever wrong!”
Thank you, Jill! I did also suggest alternately throwing the solid material in the trash, so do I least get time off for good behavior?
(I confirmed this through lots of research and by watching a terrifying episode of a PBS documentary from Sweden, the memory of which still gives me the willies. I advise you to take my word for it, because if you look it up, you’ll be showering every twenty minutes.)
And so, Tip #1: Do not sweep out the family cabin you use once or twice a year; wear a mask and use a vacuum with a HEPA filter to do the cleanup instead, and be sure to wear a mask when you dispose of the contents. Then dispose of the masks and wash your hair and clothes.
You should also wear serious respiratory protection if any signs of raccoons are present. (Their scat is VERY distinctive; you should look it up so you know it when you see it. In fact, you should learn to recognize the scat and footprints of all the wild animals commonly found in your area. It’s informative! It’s educational! It makes a great conversation starter at parties!) Well maybe not that last part…
Anyway, every season, we get a LOT of emails from people who plan to ‘live trap’ a pest mammal that’s eating their garden and then {quote} ‘release it elsewhere”. News Flash: There IS no ‘elsewhere’! Captured racoons should ALWAYS be professionally euthanized, as moving the animal to another location would only give the problem to someone else or cause the raccoon to suffer a long and painful death, as studies have shown that almost all relocated mammals (including groundhogs) are not successful in their new site.
And relocation is also illegal in many states, as frequent listener and advisor Tom in Nazareth Pa reminded us by writing “Good advice about why not to try relocation, but were you aware that it is also against the law in PA to relocate groundhogs? Thought you should know.” Turns out that it’s against the law in many other states and locales as well.
And from the department of piling on: the PA Game Commission adds that raccoons, groundhogs and foxes are rabies vector species (skunks too) and should not be relocated. VERY IMPORTANT: If you try to ‘catch and release’ any of these animals and are scratched or bitten, you need to see a communicable disease specialist ASAP, no matter how harmless it looks. Rabies is nasty.
Let’s drop back to the advice I delivered when I first tackled this question (specifically about groundhogs) several years ago. I passed on the old folk advice to pour used kitty litter down groundhog holes (after separating out the feces) as groundhogs are very fastidious creatures and will not reuse a lair that stinks of cat urine. (Neither would I.)
Yes, they’ll start to dig another run nearby. Let them work on it for a few days and then soil that one too. It has been my experience, and that of many others who have taken this advice, that the animals then move on, but they move on to a place of THEIR CHOICE--which means that you won’t accidentally pick a totally inappropriate new location where they wouldn’t have a decent chance of survival. (You also won’t be breaking the law, which is always a plus.)
After dishing out that suggestion, we also heard from Jill in “Wild and wonderful West Virginia” who let me know that she had loved that part of my advice, but NOT how I suggested getting rid of the {ahem} ‘solid material’ in the kitty litter.
She wrote: “I LOVE your program. But on a recent show you recommended using used cat litter after it had been thoroughly saturated with urine to discourage groundhogs. Fabulous suggestion! But PLEASE retract the part where you said to flush the leftover solid material down the toilet.
She quotes from a respected resource: “The Toxoplasmosis parasite found in cat feces is killing many of the ocean’s highly endangered sea otters, along with dolphins, whales, manatees, walruses, sea lions, and seals…”
Furthermore, “the parasite has been found in other marine life that are part of the food chain. It is ingested as part of that chain and passed along to other animals, including humans. Most people are not aware of how lethal the practice of flushing cat feces is to marine life. I even had to educate my own Mother! She has lived on the coast in southern Florida for 25+ years and had no idea of the consequences. I had assumed that there would be heightened awareness of this problem in a coastal region. Boy was I ever wrong!”
Thank you, Jill! I did also suggest alternately throwing the solid material in the trash, so do I least get time off for good behavior?
