The Great Groundhog Coverup
Groundhogs: You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.
As Dave Thompson’s article in Monday’s newspaper pointed out, no matter how annoying these cheeky marmots become, it is illegal to shoot or poison them within the city limits of Lynchburg. You can trap them, but it is then illegal to convey the captured groundhogs across “jurisdictional lines.“
(I wonder who orginally sponsored that bill. Was he or she influenced by the groundhog lobby?)
I will relate, then, a story told to me recently by a Lynchburg resident. I will not reveal his name, since this tale involves contraband groundhogs. Please stop reading now if this offends you.
“Since we moved into our house, we’ve probably trapped 30 or 40 groundhogs,“ said my source, who I will refer to as “GH” (for Groundhog Hunter).
And since the only legal alternative to relocating them is trying to make pets out of them (not recommended), GH has joined what is apparently a whole shadowy group of underground groundhog traffickers.
“When they opened a new park along the river in Amherst County, we took one over there,“ GH said. “It was after dark, and no sooner had we got there than an Amherst sheriff’s department car came down with its light flashing.
“‘Don’t you know the park closes at dusk?“ the officer told GH and his wife.
GH pleaded ignorance, being from Lynchburg, and the deputy gave him a warning and started to leave. Then, he stopped.
“What are you doing down here, anyway?“ he asked.
“Well, we have this groundhog ... “ GH began.
According to GH’s version of events, the deputy said: “I don’t want to hear any more. I’m not in animal control.“
He drove away, and GH released the groundhog.
“A couple of weeks later,“ he said, “I was talking to someone from Madison Heights, and he told me, ‘We’ve got a groundhog problem over here, too.‘
“I asked him what they did with their groundhogs. Did they trap them? He said: ‘Yes. And then we usually take them across the river and release them over by Hollins Mill Dam.‘ Turns out we’re just exchanging each other’s groundhogs.“
Just thought you’d like to know.
Posted by Darrell Laurant at 06:05 PM. Filed under: main •
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Posted by ( wdstump ) on April 07, 2010 at 7:45 am
The last thing my deceased grandfather wanted many years ago was to eat a fresh baked groundhog. he was from Bland County originally but we lived in Norfolk. Sorry I didn’t have a place to harvest him one, but since then, and moving here, I spend a lot of days doing just that. I don’t eat them, but the farmers here appreciate ridding their fields of them.
Destructive Little Creatures.
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