RockWrangler
Bronze Member
I moved onto a few acres in eastern Washington two years ago (moved from western WA—those who know will understand). We are located on a rocky shelf with a columnar basalt cliff rising maybe 50 feet in my front, and another basalt cliff 400 feet to my back, dropping off maybe 100 feet. There is a very thin layer of cultivatable soil, supplemented with trucked in dirt to actually grow things. To give you an idea of the thin soil, I have to pile rocks around the t-posts to hold up the chicken yard fence. There is a small orchard with cherry, apple, and plum trees, a berry patch with 120 feet of thornless raspberries, and a fairly large garden. I’ve got a few chickens for eggs, and am thinking about adding a few more animals eventually.
The foregoing is a lead into the actual problem. Yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) are an absolute infestation in the area. Also known as woodchucks, groundhogs, and whistle pigs in other parts of the country, these critters occupy nearly every cavity, crack and hole in the rocky landscape, and they relish my cultivated vegetation. The neighbors up the road, down the road, and up the cliff have all given up and signed a formal surrender.
I started out shooting the offenders, but quickly saw that my thin soil will not support a mass marmot graveyard, so I began live-trapping them, and hauling the catch off a few miles to a nature preserve. In the past year we have relocated 72. I have three traps in operation all the time, but haven’t seen a decline in the visible population. We have tried different baits, from green beans to cantaloupes, but find apple cores to be the perfect lure.
I thought about eating them, after all they are just big ground squirrels, and I grew up eating squirrels. 72 varmints at 10 lbs average comes out to 720 lbs, or a dressed weight of half that. But I can’t bring myself to put them on a plate. Marmots can be a source of several diseases, including bubonic plague, and are a banned meat in some locales.
So what else shall I do with this bountiful harvest? I don’t expect to surrender my little plot of ground to them, but I don’t know what I will do with an annual crop of 6 dozen. Fortunately, the nature preserve is several hundred acres of rocky basalt, so should be able to support additional residents, but I am just moving my problem elsewhere.
Does anybody have any suggestions, short of skinning them and selling the pelts, or eating them? Right now, the only thing I can see to do is make transporting marmots my retirement hobby.
I know, I know, this is a tractor forum. One day I can talk tractors, but right now this tops the list. Thanks for your help.
The foregoing is a lead into the actual problem. Yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) are an absolute infestation in the area. Also known as woodchucks, groundhogs, and whistle pigs in other parts of the country, these critters occupy nearly every cavity, crack and hole in the rocky landscape, and they relish my cultivated vegetation. The neighbors up the road, down the road, and up the cliff have all given up and signed a formal surrender.
I started out shooting the offenders, but quickly saw that my thin soil will not support a mass marmot graveyard, so I began live-trapping them, and hauling the catch off a few miles to a nature preserve. In the past year we have relocated 72. I have three traps in operation all the time, but haven’t seen a decline in the visible population. We have tried different baits, from green beans to cantaloupes, but find apple cores to be the perfect lure.
I thought about eating them, after all they are just big ground squirrels, and I grew up eating squirrels. 72 varmints at 10 lbs average comes out to 720 lbs, or a dressed weight of half that. But I can’t bring myself to put them on a plate. Marmots can be a source of several diseases, including bubonic plague, and are a banned meat in some locales.
So what else shall I do with this bountiful harvest? I don’t expect to surrender my little plot of ground to them, but I don’t know what I will do with an annual crop of 6 dozen. Fortunately, the nature preserve is several hundred acres of rocky basalt, so should be able to support additional residents, but I am just moving my problem elsewhere.
Does anybody have any suggestions, short of skinning them and selling the pelts, or eating them? Right now, the only thing I can see to do is make transporting marmots my retirement hobby.
I know, I know, this is a tractor forum. One day I can talk tractors, but right now this tops the list. Thanks for your help.