Lazarus

Ordinarily I wouldn't make a big production about wildlife in my yard unless their behavior or conditions of their existence begin to become destructive or cause other harm.  If you chose to live in rural America critters are part of the landscape and you share it with them. 

Having said that - if a groundhog begins tunneling and undermining the foundation of your barn you may have to intervene.  Same for mice in your basement.  Or a colony of sociopathic German yellow jacket wasps in the wall of your wife’s potting shed.   Speaking about insect infestations – how about a million, bazillion stinky lady bugs sunning themselves on the sunny side of your house before they move in for the winter?  Ugh.   And then there is the reoccurring matter of ground squirrels tunneling and inhabiting your mound system – or POWTS (Private Onsite Wastewater Treatment System). 

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing personal against ground squirrels – the Thirteen-lined ground squirrel - Spermophilus tridecemlineatus in particular.  I bear them no grudge.  Nevertheless, the construction of a septic mound and all of its attendant operating systems is quite expensive and to risk its operating efficiency or life span at the hands of tunneling rodents comes with no small amount of consternation.  I have attempted live-trapping them to tittle effect.  They are masters of eventually escaping thru the bars of my smallest live trap.  I dare not attempt poisoning them as a dead squirrel may cause no small amount of harm to a curious and hungry Labrador retriever.  I could shoot them like a sniper – yet that requires rising early and burning daylight when other pressing shores demand attention.  Or there is the always reliable Victor Rat Trap.  Or is it? 

I recently set the trap in the photo – baited with irresistible peanut butter and anchored by means of a stiff wire inserted into the turf – namely to prevent an overnight varmint from easily carrying-off the trap along with a deceased squirrel. 

Twice I found the trap was sprung, the bait gone and no squirrel corpse to provide evidence of its efficacy.  Although it is entirely possible another predator absconded with any deceased squirrel caught in the trap. 

And then one day – as I was working in the garden – I discerned an audible SNAP!  Focusing on the mound I spied a squirrel twitching in the trap and immediately falling still.  I allowed the situation to chill for about twenty minutes and calmly walked to the trap, opened the spring-loaded bale and dropped a presumably dead squirrel to the ground.  Setting the trap aside I reached to pick-up the decedent for disposal when it suddenly arose from the dead and limped sideways in a crab-like fashion about ten feet from me.  This rodent was obviously not well - yet seemingly far from the grip of death. 
 
Determined to end its misery I walked back to the garage to fetch a pistol and returned to the squirrel that had now launched into a loud and clamorous, chattering alarm call.  Chambering a round I prepared to deliver a merciful coup de grâce when the squirrel (now seemingly unimpaired) darted away and disappeared from view with normal ground squirrel haste. 
 
I am not quick to invoke biblical connation to such inexplicable events but that rodent was the gopher equivalent of Lazarus.  Probably a good thing I didn’t shoot it as it was meant to live on.  Meanwhile, they’re still burrowing in the mound and likely a bit more wary of the trap and the guy in the garden. 
 
Back to the drawing board....