Should I kill them or let them be?
I have a slab of concrete that is supposed to be a porch in my backyard, these chipmunks, one named Chip, the other named Wilbur, are living under the slab of concrete, I see them everyday and they are starting to annoy me because they are digging shit up all around the slab. I don’t know if I should just put a rat traps out there and kill them, I’m not a killer and I like to preserve nature, but I fear that when my garden starts to grow they will eat all my stuff. So what should I do?
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38 Answers
Get some traps that won’t kill them so that you can relocate them. Be sure to take them across a river or something though or they could find their way back. A lot of local animal-control centres have live-traps to rent or borrow.
You have named them for pete’s sake, you can’t kill them. Catch and release.
YOU NAMED THEM!!! How about a relocation program? Pets? Maybe an animal rescue group. Do not kill them. :(
No!!! put down the weapons!!!!
Call animal control
Get a Hav-A-Heart trap, bait it with sunflower seeds and a bit of peanut butter, then when they fall for it, take them waaaaaaayyy out of town and let them go.
The others are right. Trap them and relocate them or scare them away, but don’t kill them!!
My mother has tried everything to get rid of this one chipmunk in the backyard. Even buying fox urine from the internet. Apparently fox urine doesn’t bother chipmunks.
@casheroo
Yes, they drink it to get buzzed. Apparently substance abuse is rampant among the ‘munks
@SeventhSense You had me at chipmonks, you lost me at dead rats hanging.
Don’t kill them! ;-;
Keep them as pets or something. Or catch and release.
Btw, that drunk squirrel was hilarious… but /why/ did you have to post that sad picture, @SeventhSense? The one with the rats? It was so sad. ;-;
get them bowties and breakaway black slacks and rent them out to middle aged ladies.
Only kill them if you plan on using every part.
They’d probably kill you if they had the chance.
Catch them and produce their first record.
Chip and Dale’s not Chippendale’s
yes exactly…I hear Christmas carols- “Chestnuts roasting…
Get the traps. We had squirrels in our attic (not code for being wacko, btw) and I made my husband relocate them and then seal the hole they kept getting in through. He made NINE trips full of squirrels to his parents’ house across town to let them loose.
Whatever you do, please don’t kill them. Ive found through personal experience that once you make that first vermin kill, you’re able to kill again without a second thought. I had a family of mice living inside my house once, caught them all using glue traps – they run across a flat tray with a layer of super strong glue and are immediately immobilized. The first one must have been caught an hour or so before I found it; when I walked into the kitchen it made the most horrifying squeals of terror I had ever heard, literally sending chills up my spine and making my heart race. It was then I realized that once I caught it I didn’t have a plan on how to get rid of it! (rather not go into the details of what I ended up doing with him).
The thing is, once I had that first kill under my belt, killing the other six (one adult and 5 babies, no doubt the rest of the family) was easy. Just one kill had desensitized me. Although they were ‘just’ mice, I didn’t like how nonchalant killing critters had become. I went from apologizing to the first one to “hell yeah, I got your little ass” to the others.
Maybe I’m too soft, but that’s kinda f’d up. At least I think so.
I’d say drop them off at your most hated neighbors yard and let them dig away!
Wow, you named them and now are considering killing them? Harsh! Relocate them!
It’s pretty hard to justify killing critters you’ve named, especially when relocating them would be a much wiser solution than trying to kill them. Do you really want to dig underneath the concrete slab to fish out the rotting stinking putrid corpse of a little critter on account of you poisoned it and it ran and hid to die (cause they’re too smart to be caught in rat traps)?
In reality I don’t have qualms with the ethics of killing little rodents, even ones you name. Just cause you named them doesn’t mean they’re your pets, you have no obligation to them. At the same time, they’re dumb animals doing only what they can to survive, and as a powerful human you should understand and respect this and help them have a chance of a life versus killing them because they are annoying you.
Give catching and releasing (hint, don’t release them in your backyard, you have to drive out a good distance away else they’ll just come right back home) a try before you turn to terminating them.
@dynamicduo
Well the thing about poisoning is that for some reason they don’t retreat into a corner but come out looking for air and usually away from the house. I think the most humane way is to just snap their neck in a trap. Glue strips and poison are for the squeamish but they turn out to be less humane in the long run. The best solution for rodents is one of these. You won’t have a rodent within 5 miles of your house.
Some good arguments here @jdogg not a bad idea considering my neighbors are constantly in my shit because I am about 50 or 60 years younger than all of them. I’ll see if I can rent some traps or borrow them or something, if not, I will just wait, but if they start to eat my garden they’re dead.
Traps are easy to come by, most larger hardware stores will have live traps of varying sizes. They’re like steel cages with handles and a trap door that goes off if they step on something way inside…far enough in that the door won’t hit them. Releasing is easy as well, just lift up on the door. Just have to put something they’ll want to eat in there.
Ahh…human egotism. My garden is more important than life. I am so proud.~
I’m with the “you named them how can you kill them” group.
Unless you have two tiny headstones that you’ve just been itchin’ to use.
easy way to get rid of them without killing them is this http://www.wildlife-traps.com/chipmunks.html. They’re a little pricey sometimes but it’s easy and safe.
after you catch them, take them to your least favorite in laws….
I just made up the names for the sake of the question, get over that fact and what is everyones opinions? If i wanted them as a pet i would have named them something better than Chip and Wilbur….
Ok, the answer is still the same, catch and release.
@evolverevolve – I think the point isn’t so much that you named them, as it is that you see them as worthy of names, if even only for the purpose of the question. In doing so, if even for a very specific purpose, you have humanized them and therefore it seems more morally repugnant to kill them to the collective sensibilities, especially when live animal traps are easy to acquire.
@dalepetrie lol it doesn’t mean he gives a shit about the chipmunks regardless bud, you’re looking a bit too far into the question….
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