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Wisconsin’s Ban On Groundhog Season

By Patrick DurkinJuly 16, 2013

LAST UPDATED: May 1st, 2015

Wisconsin’s recent flap about creating a hunting season for groundhogs should be a lesson to lawmakers everywhere: Once people put a name with a face – especially one that’s borderline cute – expect mud fights and silent friends if you can’t specify your reasons for wanting a hunting season for the critter. The proposal by state Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, was difficult from the start because folks couldn’t even agree whether this overgrown ground squirrel is called a groundhog, woodchuck or whistlepig. And it sounded kind of cranky when declaring the dates (March 1 to Dec. 31) when it’s OK to shoot “Jimmy the Groundhog” or “Punxsutawney Phil.” Luckily, Wisconsin had a long, well-documented heritage for hunting deer before Walt Disney named them Bambi. Likewise, imagine the quacks of outrage had Lodi, Wisconsin, named its town mascot, Susie the Duck, before duck hunting rooted itself in lore. Plus, much of Wisconsin has long eaten venison, bear, rabbit, squirrel, turkey, pheasant, partridge and waterfowl; and long valued the fur of bears, mink, otters, foxes, coyotes, wolves, bobcats and raccoons. But groundhogs?

GH1

Squirrels and cottontail rabbits have designated hunting seasons with specific dates and bag limits in Wisconsin, but groundhogs can only be killed when causing damage.

If not for the fun and fame of Feb. 2, few Wisconsinites could distinguish groundhogs from pikas, although one’s much larger and lives here, while the other inhabits the Rocky Mountains. In fact, most Wisconsinites have long ignored groundhogs. When we do think of them, we usually call them woodchucks. So, of the two lists below, which is missing the woodchuck?
— Badger, moose, jackrabbit and flying squirrel.
— Skunk, opossum, weasel and snowshoe hare.
Answer: Wisconsin law puts woodchucks on the first list. As with the badger, moose, jackrabbit and flying squirrel, woodchucks are a “protected” species in the Badger State. Those on the second list aren’t protected. If you buy a small-game license from the state Department of Natural Resources, you can hunt ’possums, skunks, weasels and snowshoe hares year-round; and kill, skin, freeze and/or eat as many as you want. No one seems to know why or when woodchucks achieved “protected” status. And, apparently, few cared decades ago when creating that list. At the least, no one bothered recording their reasoning for posterity.

GH2

Groundhogs are best known for digging up lawns and fields, but not everyone knows they can climb trees.

Even Scott Craven – professor-emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and venerable answer-man for all things winged, mammalian or both – can’t explain the listing with his usual authority. Craven said a predecessor in wildlife at UW-Madison, Professor Bob Ellerson, thought the protection originated in the 1940s when woodchucks were fewer in number, and science believed their tunnels and burrows benefited other critters. Even so, “protected” status doesn’t mean much when birds or animals damage property. Much like rabbits, squirrels or chipmunks, if a woodchuck devours your garden or damages other property, you can set a box trap, catch the culprit, end its tunneling forever, and do a little excavating of your own to bury it. Rural residents can even poke a .22 rifle out a window and end a groundhog’s raids in mid-swallow.

Things aren’t much trickier on public lands. Typically, when town, county or state property managers spot four-legged vandals, they remove them much as homeowners do rats or mice. Therefore, lawmakers err when proposing a hunting season to solve wildlife damage woes, whether it’s for woodchucks or sandhill cranes. Such bills invite silly comments like “If it walks, crawls or flies in Wisconsin, hunters can probably shoot it.”Rabbit pellets. As Craven says, we hunt about 145 of North America’s approximately 1,150  bird and mammal species. In general, those 12.6 percent of hunted species are elusive enough to allow fair chase, and large enough in size and reproductive capacity to provide meat and regular harvests. Plus, we’ve hunted them regularly in history.

GH3

Groundhogs currently enjoy more protection in Wisconsin than tree squirrels or rabbits, but no one knows why.

Thus, we have thick cookbooks devoted to deer or waterfowl, and equally thick recipe compilations for small game like rabbits, squirrels, grouse, pheasants and mourning doves. But of the approximately two-dozen cookbooks in my home, only Frances Hamerstrom’s “The Wild Food Cookbook” has more than one woodchuck recipe. Ol’ Frances, ever the eccentric, had two such recipes. True, some states hold woodchuck seasons, but Wisconsin hunters have long been indifferent and they aren’t clamoring for one now. Most of us lump woodchucks into the short list of animals we mostly ignore until they do us wrong. This includes gophers, chipmunks and porcupines, none of which are protected.

A modest suggestion for Rep. Jacque and other lawmakers: Email DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp and suggest she prepare paperwork so the Natural Resources Board can remove woodchucks from the protected list and add them to the unprotected list. If that status is good enough for snowshoe hares, it’s good enough for woodchucks. Besides, the Board regularly adds and subtracts plants and wildlife from its “endangered and threatened” lists with far less hysteria.
Or does Wisconsin’s thirst for drama justify more attention from full-time legislators and staffs?

Patrick Durkin
President at Wisconsin Outdoor Communicators Association
Patrick Durkin is a lifelong bowhunter and full-time freelance outdoor writer/editor who lives in Waupaca, Wisconsin. He has covered hunting, fishing and outdoor issues since 1983. His work appears regularly in national hunting publications, and his weekly outdoors column has appeared regularly in over 20 Wisconsin newspapers since 1984.
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