Last summer, we had a chipmunk population explosion in our country garden
and it seems they decided the coziest place they could find to shack up and
tunnel was under our ponds, stream liners, and rock-garden edging. Last
fall, everybody but me thought they were cute scurrying around the garden
collecting goodies for the winter. Last winter while we were inside out of
the snow, they must have decided rubber liner was tasty or good waterproof
bedding materiel because they gnawed away the rubber stream edges under two
bridges after tunneling under it. The liner must have then collapsed into
the tunnels and drained two long sections of stream under the snow pack.
That was bad enough, but repairable, after I pulled the bridges and found
out where the water went on a warm day in early March after the snow melted
and exposed the problem. I also found a third, golf-ball sized, chew hole
under a third bridge after I started our other stream system to flush it
out-still easily repairable-and quickly turned it off, noting the main pond
had floated over the winter and under the snow, probably because of the
hole.

Anyway, yesterday (Saturday) we went out to patch that hole and start that
system for the summer and it was almost two feet low! This is a fourteen by
twenty foot, .6 mil roofing rubber-lined pond, installed five years ago, and
it's never leaked or been this low before! I looked a few seconds and saw a
large (baseball sized) hole in an old wrinkle in the shallow end, right at
the water line. On further inspection I saw the same teeth marks around the
hole as were along the liner edge under the bridges in the other stream and
pond system. The *#^!$%& chipmunks had struck again!

On further inspection around the perimeter of the pond, I found two other
large areas that not only had holes chewed through them, but then had been
gnawed completely away and hauled off, probably to line their nests. These
shredded areas were over a square foot each and any surrounding creases in
the liner radiating from the centers were also gnawed to shreds.

The big problem is, there is rock work covering most of the rest of the
liner now above the water line and I have no idea how many more holes are
hidden there so we're going to have finish draining the pond and completely
pull the liner to either patch or replace it after a thorough inspection.

On further inspection on Sunday, I discovered something had been gnawing on
the now exposed and drying cattail and other aquatic tubers in the now, half
drained pond. I'm guessing our excess chipmunk population got hungry because
of the excess snow we had in February, to gnaw through the liner, causing
leaks higher up first (and I hope at least the original culprit drowned if
it flooded his tunnel). This lowered the water level enough for them to get
to some of the cattail and iris tubers along the bank and then they started
new tunnels through the liner even deeper, exposing even more food and dry
liner after the water drained through the new holes and hopefully flooded
their tunnels.

So, this is a warning to the group, chipmunks may be cute in the garden, but
they can quickly devastate a rubber-lined pond if they figure out how to
start gnawing along an edge or a crease to drain it. Now, I have two
questions for the group:

1. Do you think chipmunks can do the same thing to Permalon?

And:

2. How do you completely exterminate a large chipmunk village? By our
sightings, we're assuming we have over a dozen in an area of about two acres
around the house, barns/garages, and gardens. Lethal suggestions are
preferable now that the gloves are off, since they've already done several
hundred dollars worth of damage (even factory-direct wholesale, that 32'x50'
special ordered roll of .06 mil roofing rubber cost over $350.00).

We already tried mothballs last summer when the varmints started getting
thick and I bought and tried a live-trap that only caught the neighbors cat,
showing a cat prowling in our garden hasn't worked. I can't shoot them (yet)
because the Significant Other has three girls and is afraid their knowing I
was planning on assassinating the cute little forest darlings would be too
traumatic for their delicate natures to handle (gag!), and we've also got
snakes in the garden that I've finally convinced the S.O. to not make me
catch and haul off to the State Park, even if they do eat the occasional
toad or frog. The point is, I've tried everything I know of to run the
little terrorists off, short of gunfire, and some sort of reasoning to allow
that with my PETA sympathizing, S.O. would also be much appreciated.

RGB
Zone 5 (OH)