Chipmunks

I first noticed the rodent activity last week (image above) at the place where the driveway meets the garage, so I replaced the gravel in the burrow and made a mental note to do something about it, but by yesterday (below) the process was obviously in an accelerated phase.

The quickest response would be to push all the dirt and gravel back down and then seal the top with an expanding foam, but I was reluctant to possibly convert the burrow into a live burial, so instead I got out our smallest Havahart trap, baited it with a piece of chicken teriyaki, and waited.  Within a couple hours the malefactor was in the trap, and I drove him/her to a new homesite near fields and prairie about a mile away.

Then I reset the trap, not sure if this was one guy or possibly two.  I captured a second one before evening and drove it over to where the first was released.  Then I realized that I don't know that the ones I trapped are a mated pair and the occupants of the hole or just wandering neighborhood residents, so I decided to look up some info on their ecology and when they have their litters.  Found this nice infographic -

That was new information for me.  I did not realize that common chipmunks would create multiple entrances to their hidey-holes.  Now I'm thinking that the risk of sealing a chipmunk family into a live burial horrorshow is unlikely, and that I can just go ahead with the cleanup and closure.

But one advantage of having a blog full of well-read and diversely-experienced readers is that sometimes I can call for help.  So I'd appreciate advice from others with backgrounds in rodentology, mammalogy, pest control, or house maintenance.

Before leaving, I'll insert several tidbits from the Wikipedia entry:

The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk", from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel" (cf. Ojibwe ajidamoo). The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is "chipmonk", from 1842. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck", and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels", probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-19th century, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, calling it the "chipping squirrel [or] hackee". Chipmunks have also been referred to as ground squirrels, (although the name "ground squirrel" may refer to other squirrels, such as those of the genus Spermophilus).

Eastern chipmunks, the largest of the chipmunks, mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year... Chipmunks construct extensive burrows which can be more than 3.5 m (11 ft) in length with several well-concealed entrances. The burrows are complex and include plugged entryways, nseparate compartments for nesting, multiple food chambers, side pockets and escape routes. The sleeping quarters are kept clear of shells, and feces are stored in refuse tunnels.