Woodchuck Control

 Source - http://www.bugspray.com/articles99/woodchucks.html

Around the home, woodchucks will feed on just about any plant or flower. Woodchucks will damage plants quickly with this feeding. They particularly like tomatoes, fruit or any ground growing vegetable. Most weekend gardeners will attest to the persistence these stocky creatures will demonstrate when trying to get to a certain crop they want. Woodchucks are members of the squirrel family. They are the largest of all squirrels and are commonly known as woodchucks or groundhogs. Woodchucks reproduce once a year and produce litters which have 4-8 young.

Around the home, most woodchuck problems are due to damage they cause eating plants. There are two ways to deal with this behavior. If they have a lot of other food available to them, you can treat desirable plantswith a product called ROPEL. This spray tastes terrible and will stop the woodchucks from feeding on any treated surface. When other food sources are available, Ropel will cause the animal to find another plant for dinner. Simply spray the Ropel directly on leaves, flowers or whatever part of the plant the woodchucks are eating. Ropel is not a poison; it simply tastes terrible. Expect to get 2-6 weeks of results. Rain will break it down, but it has such a strong flavor that even trace amounts are usually enough to keep animals away. In a short period of time, the woodchuck will find another food supply to keep it happy.

Additionally, the installation of some ANIMAL NETTING will assuredly keep targeted plants protected. This light mesh plastic works great at stopping woodchuck, rabbit, deer, birds and any animal from foraging on plants, vegetables, fruit and anything you want to protect.

If there is little food available for the nuisance woodchuck, spraying Ropel may not work. This is because the need for nutrition and water is too great. Woodchucks will tolerate the taste if they are stressed and need food.

Trapping woodchucks is easy. In most cases, all you need is the plant on which they have been feeding to use as bait

Once caught, relocate the animal at least 5 miles away. Try to release it early in the morning in an area where it will readily find food and shelter. Since woodchucks are easy targets once removed from their den, you must be careful when relocating. If left with no food or ground suitable for a burrow, they will quickly die.

If you are not interested in trapping the animal alive, consider a kill trap.