Through the urban naturalist grapevine, I knew that woodchucks lived in Green-Wood Cemetery, but I’d never run across one before. Yesterday, I noticed something oddly round and furry on the ground in the distance. When I trained my binoculars on it, I thought it was a dead raccoon. But it was a woodchuck sunning itself outside its burrow. It pretty much instantly was aware of me and ready for trouble.
Woodchucks are rodents. The scientific name for the species is Marmota monax; the animal is also known as a groundhog. Yup, same thing. This one’s burrow was underneath a family memorial. 
The burrow obviously went right underneath the big tomb, because this picture is from the other side. An obvious trail led a short distance to another hole underneath a vault. (Clearly, this is the Woodchuck of the Dead.) According to this helpful site, woodchucks live alone, but males visit females in their burrows for mating. (No doubt with a bottle of Champagne and some poetry in paws.) Mostly vegetarians, woodchucks hibernate through the winter. Litters are born in April and May.
Dogs and cars are probably the woodchucks’ greatest threat in city (in the suburbs they have to watch out for pest control types), but dogs at least are not allowed in the cemetery. I’d love to know more about their lives in the green heart of Brooklyn, amidst 2.5 million humans.
Update 4/8 The City Birder reports spotting another woodchuck in Brooklyn, this time in Prospect Park.
I always love seeing wildlife in the boroughs. I’ve never seen a woodchuck before, not even Chuck who lives in the Staten Island zoo.
I bet there are a few woodchucks on Staten Island. Seems the perfect place, with lots of habitat still.
Oh, Matthew, lucky lucky lucky lucky you. Later this spring, I want to head out to Green-wood to see what I can see. What a fat and lovely little guy that woodchuck is.
It was luck. Usually, I’m on the lookout for anomalies in the trees, not on the ground. (And things coming out of the ground in a cemetery? I’m still traumatized by the last shot of Carrie.)
Later in the spring will be perfect, once all the specimen trees have bloomed.
I was also traumatized by the last shot in “Carrie”, and am often on the lookout for the eerie in Green-Wood. Next time I’m there I’ll look for a Woodchuck of the Dead.