Eastern Chipmunk. Photo by Carlton Burke
By Winslow Umberger
When you think of chipmunks, what’s your first reaction? “Awwww!” or “Arrgghh!”? While you may not be enamored with them in your garden, you might grudgingly admit these bright-eyed little creatures can be endearing. Animators surely find them entertaining, as evidenced by films like Alvin and the Chipmunks. They are most certainly important to our ecosystem.
The true story of these continually busy creatures—foraging for food, building burrows, stockpiling provisions for the winter months spent underground, raising young—is amazing reality. Take their burrows, for instance. “Chipmunks have a complicated burrow system,” says wildlife educator and rehabilitator Carlton Burke of Carolina Mountain Naturalists. They have specialized chambers for everything “with storage chambers for food such as acorns and seeds gathered in autumn, and other specialized chambers for sleeping, giving birth, and even a chamber that is used as a toilet.” Baby chipmunks are nursed by the mother underground and left there if she needs to go above ground for any reason. They nurse for about three weeks before they are weaned and begin to eat solid food. Not long after that the young chipmunks start to venture above ground.
Spotting a chipmunk’s burrow may be hard, says Burke. “They never leave a pile of dirt at the entrance. They scatter it around so that the entrance is not easily seen. Many chipmunks have several scattered entrances into their burrows, so when a predator or something else frightens them, they run and disappear into the ground through the closest hole they have made.”
Their “digs” are only meant for one chipmunk family. No Airbnbs allowed. “Eastern chipmunks are solitary and territorial,” says Andrea Shipley, M.S., mammalogist for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. “They do not live in colonies. If an Eastern chipmunk were to be released in an area where it came from originally, it would likely come into conflict with the resident chipmunk of that area and be forced to live transiently before being able to set up a new home range of its own. Like many mammals, Eastern chipmunks have a strong homing instinct. Relocation of mammals with a strong homing instinct is not recommended because of the potential conflict relocating to a new area can cause.”
Chipmunk hole. Photo by Carlton Burke
You might have heard their vocalizations in defense of those territories. These tiny town criers communicate with each other through their calls. Those lines of communication may mean the difference between life and death. Most of us know the familiar “chip” they make when we startle them. They will dash off with tails up, but, ever curious, can’t resist poking their heads out from their refuge to check out the threat. To warn off trespassers on their quarter-acre-size territories, they will emit a repetitive, low-pitched “chuck, chuck” (like a stick rapping on a hollow wooden block.) Interestingly, like with humans, not all are reliable communicators. “They each have distinctive ‘personalities’ and don’t all react the same way, even when facing exactly the same situation,” says Shipley.
Chipmunks are under constant risk of predation so they are on continual alert. Even from us, as during the warm months, you might find them in your garden, noshing on your berries, bulbs, buds and tubers. It can be quite entertaining to watch them stuff their cheeks with chow. In his book Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival, New England ecologist Bernd Heinrich reports counting 60 sunflower seeds packed into just one cheek pouch. In a good year, one four-ounce chipmunk can stockpile eight pounds of food.
In their eat-and-be-eaten world, “Eastern chipmunks are an important source of prey to species such as bobcats, foxes, coyotes, raptors and reptiles,” says Shipley. “Because chipmunks are generally plentiful, they help keep other wildlife populations fed and abundant.” They also help flora flourish. By gathering and burying seeds, chipmunks aid in the spread of trees, shrubs and other plants. When partaking of fungi, they help spread mycorrhiza, a fungus that’s vital for increasing water and nutrient absorption in plants. Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, chipmunks are valuable ecosystem players, so take (humane) steps to protect your garden, and enjoy the show.
Winslow Umberger is head of outreach for Appalachian Wild, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide care for injured and orphaned wildlife, support WNC’s wildlife rehabilitation network and offer conservation education. Learn more at AppalachianWild.org.
Fully enjoyed reading the habits and contribution chipmunks have on our eco system. We have an abundance of these little creatures on our property, I was contemplating moving some before I read this information I will now make other adjustments. We do enjoy them.
They are nice and cute to watch until they become so plentiful that they dig down the sides of your foundation. Being overrun with chipmunks is not a good thing.
Which is exactly why I am reading this article.
How do you protect your gardens from them?
We have chipmunks eating away at our concrete back steps . I bought have a heart traps and have been relocating them on a regular basis.
You should have read this article first,I did the same thing & now I’m not sure it was the right thing to do because I took 3 (separate cases) down 1/4 mile to a forest preserve…..they’re probably already back here ?
has relocating them been successful in taking down the population in your yard?
I have a 5/8th acre lot. I have trapped 6 in 2 days on June 13, 14 and relocated them 8 miles away. I was told that possibly 5 share a 1/2 are lot. This early AM 6-21, I caught 2 more and my neighbor said he saw some large birds shredding a few of them in the cow pasture behind us. My thought is my neighbors have them and do nothing about it. So they are spreading out from my neighbors yard into my yard. My lawn looks like a 9 hole golf course.
Where do yall live
I have the same issue and live in a townhome. I feel there are sooo many of them that they may to some real damage to our foundation. I wonder if I could do the 5 gallon bucket w a ramp and peanut butter and no water and relocate them to just a not so far forest. Have you found anything else to do? I read about the relocation and the homing instincts but is that for all chipmunks? I’m not concerned about garden but foundation to a home is a big deal.
My feeling is that they stand a great chance of survival if relocated to a proper habitat, and if they don’t survive then they’ll surely be beneficial food for other animals or even flies to lay their eggs on, as nothing goes to waste in nature.
We trapped 2 within 24 hrs of setting the trap “the chipmunkinator” from Rural King- we will be relocating them! And very effective $46 that we will keep using…
I have a recent (5yrs) infestation Live here 23 yrs and there has been a explosion in population Holes and plants and under new driveway so.. I Have caught 23 on my small city size lot so far The explosion occurred because ignorant neighbors!! Ive tol them that there sloppy uncleaned and messy bird feeders are the reason and of course they keep on – so I recently caught one st it down and forgot and when I remembered it was dead from the direct sun which had came onto him I was pretty saddened to see this Anyway i drove them a couple miles and the supply has been endless so far
Chipmunk found in my bluebird house and he ate my little baby bluebirds, until now I did not know that chipmunks would eat small animals. They have now created a new enemeny
Ugh. Good to know. I’m not going to trap them but will stop allowing them to feed at the bird feeder. In fact it’s time yo put the bird feeder away in summer. Birds don’t need it and only seems to feed the rodents.
Birds squirrel s chipmucks need feed and water 24/7 especially during the summer
I too have a Chipmunk population. I’ve been relocating them. But sometimes only a mile or so. Guess I need to take them further or find another method of control.
Chipmunks have become one of my favorite critters, right up there with chickadees. I live in Maine with plenty of woods around, which may be why I have never had any problems with them. Red squirrels are a different story. I have had them in the walls of my house, in my vehicles, pop-up camper, and out buildings over the years, and they are a real menace. (I have a relocation program for red squirrels. They get relocated to Heaven.) Chipmunks have never done any real damage in the 45 years I have lived on this property. I do have one chipmunk that pulled the nylon screen up on the bottom of the screen door to my kitchen. I had been putting handfuls of peanuts in the shells on the porch to watch him cram three peanuts at a time in his mouth. At first, when he ran out of peanuts he would stand up and look in over the bottom of screen door frame to try and get my attention. If he couldn’t see me he would climb up the screen for a better view. This worked for a while, until one day I was at the sink and heard something, and when I turned around there was Chippy right behind me on the kitchen floor. I wanted to see how he got in, so I gave him his three peanuts, and out through the hole in the screen he went. Bluejays had been stealing his peanuts, so after that I put a dish of them on the kitchen floor and he would just come in through the screen and help himself. If he ran out he would come looking for me, usually at the other end of the house where he would find me on my computer in the livingroom, so I would go back out to the kitchen with him leading the way, and fill up his peanut dish again. Then he would load up and out through the hole in the screen he would go. Peanuts are too expensive to be giving away all day, so I switched him over to sunflower seeds in a pile on the steps outside. Actually several piles, as I feed two other chipmunks as well.
Chipmunks are easy to tame if you are patient and don’t move too quickly. Peanuts in the shell work best. The first time or two that a chipmunk is hand fed peanuts they tend to confuse a fingertip for a peanut and will give your fingertip a squeeze with their teeth. Try not to freak out! They quickly realize it’s not a peanut and let go. They are not trying to bite you! As friendly as chipmunks are though, don’t believe for a minute they are there to socialize. It’s all business! It’s about hauling stuff off to their stockpile as fast as they can go from the minute they come out in the Spring until it’s time to hibernate again, all day every day. Chipmunks have to be the most obsessive compulsive creature on the planet, and can be real characters.
I’m not advocating for people to start feeding chipmunks and letting them come in the house. I understand what it’s like getting overrun with varmints, and at times you have to do what you have to do. Sorry for the overly long comment. I guess I just wanted to share the flip side of chipmunks.