Woodchuck (Marmota monax)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

      (Oak (Regen))
      or Grass
      or Upland Brush
      or Savanna
      or Small Grains/Forage Crops
      or Fields/Pastures

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Originally this ground squirrel lived in open forests but it has adapted well to human intrusion. Today, rolling farmland interspersed with grassy pastures, small woodlots, and brushy fencelines is typical woodchuck habitat.

The woodchuck feeds mostly on grasses and herbaceous plants, such as dandelion, daisy, goldenrod, and clover but this ground squirrel also competes with farmers and gardeners for carrots, beans celery, soybeans, and corn. In early spring, before green vegetation is available, a woodchuck eats the bark, buds, and twigs of dogwood, sumac, and black cherry. Although seemingly out of its element, this ungainly creature occasionally climbs trees in search of food.

Habitat: Edges of woodlands (seldom in interiors), open cultivated land, pastures, meadows, open brushy hillsides.

Special Habitat Requirements: Open land

Habitat Preferences: In presettlement days in eastern North America, the woodchuck was perhaps more restricted in numbers than today because heavy-canopied forest cover was less to the large rodent's liking than a mosaic of openings. The axe, torch, and plow produced a vast amount of forest edge, open hillsides, brushy property lines and fence rows - all conducive to a larger woodchuck population. This environmental disturbance by human occupation allowed the woodchuck to thrive by setting back plant successional stages from the climax and sub-climax forest conditions to the early stages in the vegetative successions. In fact, de Vos and Gillespie found woodchucks more populous on pasturage that was fertilized and seeded with tame grasses than on unmanaged pasture. Earthen constructed dams and the slopes of rights-of-ways for railroads and highways have attracted these burrowers.

The uneven topography of the southern Michigan countryside with mixed farmlands, pasturage, and scattered woodlots provides excellent habitats, especially on the crests of some of the glacial features. The animal has been reported on spruce barrens, around cabins, and in jack pine and cutover hardwoods. Allen described burrows excavated in mixed farmlands in Kalamazoo County. According to Grizzel at Rose Lake Wildlife Research Center, woodchucks seemed partial to loam and sandy loam soils for digging. Wood found woodchucks in dune habitat near Lake Michigan in Berrien County.

Food Habits: The woodchuck is primarily a grazer, eating the vegetative parts of plants. This habit is unlike that of other Michigan sciurids which are more prone to consume the reproductive parts (seeds, nuts, flowers, etc.) After emergence in early spring, the woodchuck may eat stems, buds, bark, and twigs of such plants as sumac, dogwood, cherry, and other fruit trees, but rapidly turns to greenery as soon as it appears. The woodchuck is almost completely vegetarian, rarely eating insects, snails, or birds' eggs. Favorite foods include the leaves of sassafras and other trees (obtained by climbing), wild lettuce, white clover, red clover, sweet clover, bluegrass, and other grasses, buttercup, chickweed, dandelions, plantains, asters, goldenrod, and numerous other herbs. In addition the woodchuck relishes farm crops, especially alfalfa, planted clovers, corn, oats, and assorted fruits and vegetables including beets, carrots, beans, peas, celery, lettuce, melons, pumpkin, potato vines, cabbage, turnips, blackberries, and strawberries.