Marmot Infestation

   / Marmot Infestation #31  
What are "smoke sticks"?

I am suddenly (not by choice!) interested in this marmot/pest thread. Voles just showed up in my wife's garden in NV, and we had an explosion of gopher activity in CA this spring.

Sorry to see the OP trapped 100+ marmots but only saw a slight decline in activity. Yikes!
Smoke sticks, Gopher gassers... basically short, smokey flare like items that you light, push down a burrow and seal up behind it, having first sealed any other openings. Very effective on pocket gophers, voles, and moles due to their behavior of not having open burrows.

However, lighting them is very Hollywood-esque as you light a short short fuse that sparks and smokes, and then the main body lights spewing black, sulfur smoke, and more little sparks. Rather like what a villain would be holding in a movie. Not something you want lit around dry grass.

This year the ground squirrels are just going crazy. One burrowed under the barn for the first time in seventy years. I don't know what set them off. Drought? Local fires?

Good luck!

All the best,

Peter
 
   / Marmot Infestation #32  
I put 7 foot chicken wire on 12" metal raised beds.
The groundhogs got in by forcing their way between the metal bed and the chicken wire.
seems to big one big GH and a baby.

Don't want to use poison, too many other creatures I don;t want to kill, including my dog.

Relocation is not a good option. I remember the park where I used to live. Everyone dumped their GH there.
At one point, you could see hundreds (literally) of GH all nesting along the 2 mile road through the park.
Who knows how many were in the woods ....

Trying to figure out what to do since GH are not normal for this area, but I know where I see 2, the population is already getting larger. I am hoping our foxes would take care of them, but with so many rabbits, I don;t think they will bother.
You need to put your dog to work. My dog has cleaned up the groundhog population on my property. I did put an electric fence around my garden to keep the dog out.
 
   / Marmot Infestation #33  
Smoke sticks, Gopher gassers... basically short, smokey flare like items that you light, push down a burrow and seal up behind it, having first sealed any other openings. Very effective on pocket gophers, voles, and moles due to their behavior of not having open burrows.
Wow I might be able to use these in both CA (pasture) and NV (garden.) Thanks!

I read in the description: "for outdoor use only." :)
 
   / Marmot Infestation #34  
I'm guessing the same thing would happen regardless of if you moved the marmots or killed them... when one leaves, another takes it's place. You'd have to stick with it for years to make a noticeable difference.

We have a family friend that traps squirrels on his small city lot and lets them go in a thick woods several miles away. He's been doing this for 30 years, yet still traps 40ish squirrels every year. Never makes a difference. Where there's a gap, nature fills it.

I've written about this several times here on TBN, but I'll tell it again.

Around 1999 or so, we had an above ground swimming pool. We had moles in the yard, but I never gave them any mind, just flattening down the hills when they popped up. Well, one day they undermined the pool, the liner popped, and 12,500 gallons of water went rushing through our garage and out to the road. The battle was on!

This was in August. I bought some mole traps and killed 29 moles from mid-August until winter.

Year two:
I started trapping again at first sign of activity and stopped counting dead moles at 50.

Year three:
Stopped counting at 50

Year four:
Stopped counting at 50

Year five:
Stopped counting at 50

Year six:
Stopped counting at 50

For those that are counting, that's 279 counted dead moles in 5.5 years on a 1 acre lot. Well over 300 since I stopped counting at 50 each year.

Then, year seven:
Only 6 moles.

Every year since:
Just a couple, maybe 3 at the most.

It was quite eye opening. From most accounts I've read, "An acre of land will support a few moles. They are solitary and only have up to 4 pups per year." Yet I was running 6 traps non-stop. Some days I'd get two from the same trap hole in just a couple hours.

:cautious:

This guy knows his stuff. I recommend reading everything on his site if you are having mole issues. It helped me quite a bit.


Also, Victor Out O Sight mole traps are the best. I've tried Nash choker loops, spikes, easy sets, etc.... and the Out O Sight just works the best.

They need to try Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)

it’s worked with ferel cats in many other areas. Just need a Vet who will assist. Probably get some funds from the county.
 
   / Marmot Infestation #35  
This year the ground squirrels are just going crazy. One burrowed under the barn for the first time in seventy years. I don't know what set them off.
Interesting to observe that. Everything at my CA property seems odd this year-- a goose running around with only 1 leg, weeks later another one dead in the pond, no fawns this spring, bucks and does NEVER out except in darkness, seen only 1 bear all year, have not seen nor heard any coyotes. Usually the coyotes are noisy. And it goes on. Last week a 7 inch turtle showed up in the pond. First ever. ?????
 
   / Marmot Infestation #36  
My ex brother in-law used a gopher gasser on a ground hog that had burrowed under their garage. Lit it up, tossed it in the hole and put a board over it. Several days later, they discovered that apparently the ground hog had taken a turn as soon as it went under the garage and burrowed right up against the wall of their basement family room. Stunk like dead animal for weeks! 🥺🤢
 
   / Marmot Infestation #37  
They need to try Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)

it’s worked with ferel cats in many other areas. Just need a Vet who will assist. Probably get some funds from the county.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that program. A neighbor of my mother in-law tried to get help removing stray cats. They suggested TNR. However, as many as they catch, there always seems to be one that they cannot and that one has kittens and it starts all over.

There were 3-4 cats when they started this. Now there's 6-7 plus a herd of kittens again.

They need to trap, neuter/spay, adopt out to indoor only cat homes or put them down. There's just too many.
 
   / Marmot Infestation #38  
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that program. A neighbor of my mother in-law tried to get help removing stray cats. They suggested TNR. However, as many as they catch, there always seems to be one that they cannot and that one has kittens and it starts all over.

There were 3-4 cats when they started this. Now there's 6-7 plus a herd of kittens again.

They need to trap, neuter/spay, adopt out to indoor only cat homes or put them down. There's just too many.
Agree, ALL solutions should always be considered.
 
   / Marmot Infestation #39  
@RockWrangler Given your thin soil, I would be thinking about ripping the soil to disrupt dens and burrows; your animals don't have much soil to hide in and ripping exposes them more to predators such as coyotes and snakes. The fractured soil is a much less desirable habitat.

Based on our experience with our garden, and like @oosik trapping is barely a bandaid measure. Ultimately, we didn't find anything short of buried wire mesh that worked. Our neighbors went to concrete foundations, and cement walls topped with clear fiberglass panels to keep rodents out To be able to have a small garden. Another neighbor did wire mesh underground and then had to go with eight (ten?) foot high chain link to keep the deer out. They also deep till / rip a 16' perimeter around the house and garden every year that helps keep rodents out. (Doubles as a fire break.)

@MossRoad we have a similar experience with feral cats, and find that if we keep two, the transit feral cats just move on. But there is a constant turnover around the edges. We will see a new one for a few months and then it is gone, then another... We got down to one cat at one point and a stray kitten moved in, bringing us back to two. I think with TNR, it is all in balancing prey/predator numbers. Something we all battle with and live with.

I really need to go build those raptor poles to up the pressure on the ground squirrels.

All the best,

Peter
 
   / Marmot Infestation #40  
I don’t know if it would work for groundhogs, but New York City had a program to eliminate rats by placing dry ice in the burrows and covering them up. It sublimes to carbon dioxide which is heavier than air and suffocates them underground. Might be worth a try and not too expensive.
 

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