We will not be species shamed!
News break! Blaska’s Experimental Work Farm (and Penal Colony) is being overrun by chipmunks.
The industrious rodents (about 8 inches long) are multiplying like Tucker’s conspiracy theories — eating our garden beans as they sprout. If past is prologue, the voracious critters will take a bite out of every tomato as it ripens. It’s their super power! Chipmunks and their cousins, ground squirrels, are known to chew the bark off young ornamental bushes. Destabilize foundations with more tunneling than Hamas. They will not bust Blaska’s bunker without a fight!
→ UW Extension on chipmunks, etc.
Chipmunks were no problem when Barles prowled the grounds. A true barn cat, Barles was an indefatigable mouser. Ate ’em heads first! His predecessor, the sainted Mr. Bluster, would drop a surplus critter at his master’s feet in repayment for his Purina cat chow. (Our subscribers should show such gratitude!)
Hearing tell of goats being loaned out to clear underbrush, the Head Groundskeeper put out an urgent appeal in the NextDoor neighborhood social app for the loan of a barn cat. This being Madison WI, the progressives began species shaming. Vanessa in Fitchburg scolded:
Why do you feel the need to eliminate them if they’re just in your yard living their lives? Is that the type of treatment you want for yourself since you’re actually in their yard? They were there first.
Mosquitoes are in my yard living their lives, too, (and drinking my blood). As far as who’s on first, tell the Ho Chunk you’re done squatting on their land. Until they pay Mayor Satya’s property taxes, the rodents are living in Blaska’s yard! An Orchard Ridge neighbor counseled:
“Learn to live with wildlife, David. We have chipmunks here, too, and they do not cause trouble enough to warrant killing. We have our garden fenced in and no rabbits or chipmunks eat anything.”
We extended this offer: “We’ll send you ours if you’ll send us yours.” One or two, we could live with. But the Experimental Work Farm is more overrun than a sanctuary city in California. Barriers? We’ve got more fencing than Trump’s Mexican border.
More bureaucracy
As in most municipalities, it’s illegal to pop these pests (Chapter 25.06 Madison ordinances) — even with a spring-loaded pellet gun. Unless you get permission from the chief of police. (How does that work?) Could try poison and traps, but got no beef with squirrels or the occasional box turtle. For that matter, feral cats are discouraged for their predation of song birds.
If we could somehow acquire a clutch of dead chipmunks. Sprinkled on the garden, their carcasses transmit an instinctive No Trespassing signal to the inquisitive creatures. That jump starts a heretofore dormant entrepreneurial gene. Fellow in Fitchburg made million$ raising rats for research. Got to be a market for dead chipmunks suitable for scattering? (Organic!) Maybe freeze-dried. If Cologuard can be sent through the mails … !
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Without predators, the balance of nature goes haywire. It’s why the DNR sets annual deer kill quotas. Tell the Aussies to learn to live with their rabbits, neighbor.
15 responses to “Kill the wascals, kill the wascals 🎵”
call in the National Guard and Marines and put a statement in your blog posts acknowledging that the chippers were here first…..
Would Satya try to get arrested in front of the cameras?
I was told since I just can’t release trapped racoons just anywhere (I trapped 15 in a 6 week period), That I should just drown them trap and all in a 55 gallon drum filled with water. I thought that was extreme. I took a mental note of the area and those with Progressive candidate signs on their properties. It takes about 10 seconds to release them into their new utopia. Kinda like bus loads of illegals rounded up and dropped off at Martha’s Vineyard.
Unleash the feline killers! How dare the scolds on busybody.com – I mean nextdoor.com – deprive a barn cat of its atavistic urges. Seems like a win-win to me.
I cry Havoc! and unleash Shelby! the chihuahua of war.
No matter which site I am on online, there are always the harpies coming out of the woodwork (almost like Alvin and his bros) to tap into somebody else’s ideas. They always have a snide comment about what somebody is asking/doing/suggesting…and you can almost hear them (like rodents in the rafters) waiting to bang on those keys. Living in such a woody area up north, and now a tropical swamp down here, I can SOOOOooo commiserate. Pests (and that is just what they are, 50s Disney movies notwithstanding) have cost me in the double-digit thousands to preserve the integrity of my home and health (literally), repair damages, and eradicate them, their smell and detritus. Tis a pity you couldn’t load the short bus with the unwanted yard guests and deliver them to people who will appreciate the adventures brought on by their presence. I don’t know if he can handle your problem, but in the end, we called KwikKill to get rid of a rodent infestation. Down here people suggest everything from wolf urine to live traps (uuuughhh). Cheaper than the cost of the destruction. Good luck and Godspeed.
I hired kwiklill a few years ago after chipmunks/whatever began to tear up lawn. 100% fixed the problem.
There are no malicious chipmunks on stolen land!
They’re tough: I’ve tried poison, live traps and rat traps with little success. Pellet gun is the only consistent remedy I’ve found.
People used to be able to get help with this problem until TACO cut all the funding and fired everyone.
But we hear Bibi has a solution.
Have Musk launch his rockets from your yard. The explosions will kill them all.
No one expects the Chipmunk Imposition.
Squire, don’t be so quick to sign a non-aggression pact with your local squirrels. Those treacherous little buggers are pure evil I tells ya!
“What do you do with YOUR pests?”
I tell the human ones in my life what they want to hear, then do what I want. Works for me. It’s a little harder to BS my sophisticated city cat 😻