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nafex - [NAFEX] The war against woodchucks

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  • From: Joe and Ellen Hecksel <jhecksel@voyager.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] The war against woodchucks
  • Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:42:22 -0400

Hello all:

So far, no Japanese Beetles.

However, I am suffering from a plague of woodchucks!

They stripped the mulberry trees of their leaves. Few things are as sad as seeing a promising graft stripped of leaves, and even worse, broken off.

We were on vacation for 8 days. We visited New Orleans (great rates on rooms this time of year for some reason) and drove home via Mississippi, Alabama, Ga, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.

Half the garden was flattened. The Hubbard squash was reduced to leaf stems. War was declared.

Mr. Internet was not much help. "First" all the internet experts agreed, "start your control efforts in April or May at the latest." Drat!

I called my neighbor Kirk who is an avid trapper. He loaned me 6 Conibear traps. I already had two 160 Conibears. They are all deployed.

There are a few places that are not conducive to Conibear traps. We have a new puppy so I don't want to use them close to the house. Also, there are a few holes that are in HUGE Poison Ivy patches. So the one live trap will also get a work-out.

Any advice on bait?

One neighbor lady claims that you can catch ANYTHING using marshmallows. They certainly are cheap and delightful to munch on if you need sustenance during the arduous task of lugging the enormous live trap around. Mr Internet said to use the leaves of the plant they were chowing down on. Too late to use squash leaves. Other suggestions were apples or carrots. One source said to pre-bait the area to get them hooked on those delicacies. That makes sense to me.

Any advice will be much appreciated. The quicker I can put a big dent in their population the better my plants will recover.

-Joe




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