CLINTON, Iowa — You could say it's Groundhog Day all year round in Clinton. It turns out a grassy, hilly median between Highway 30 into Clinton is a sweet spot for a bunch of groundhogs thriving.
"Not like this, this is the first I've ever seen and really heard of," Jessica Steines, an interpretive naturalist with Clinton County Conservation said. "It kind of reminds me of a prairie dog town a little bit."
No one knows for sure just how many groundhogs are living in the field across from ADM and near the Old Town Family Restaurant.
"Just in this section between the restaurant and right over here this street, I've counted 23 and the whole thing, I bet you anywhere from 50 to 100," neighbor Lauren Lippens said.
"There's a lot of them down this way," Brian Vandorn said. "I'd say at least 40, 50. I see them everyday when I go by here. They're all over these fields."
Groundhogs can also be called woodchucks and whistle pigs. Steines said it's because when they're alarmed, they'll give a high pitched whistle. They mostly eat plants and like fruit too.
"I think it's just the perfect habitat," she said. "No predators, you know? So there's no coyotes. It's a city and there's lots of traffic, so there's not gonna be a ton of predators and there's not a habitat for predators, so that's probably what's helping them grow. Must have good food. It's a nice, open area, so if there are predators they can see that and go in their tunnels."
The colony of groundhogs has dug plenty of tunnels in the fields. Lippens would prefer the groundhogs keep their digging to that area and not his yard.
"They're a nuisance," he said. "So far this year, I live up the street, I have trapped four of them and took them somewhere else. I'm not going to kill them. I take them somewhere else and release them."
Others said they're not bothered by their four-legged neighbors.
"They're just animals to me," Vandorn said. "Squirrels, birds, anything of that nature."
"They're not doing any damage, but they do dig holes," Craig Kemp said. "I just chase them away."
Steines doesn't live nearby the groundhog's oasis, but she does agree they can be destructive when they're on your own property. But they also benefit the ecosystem too.
"They dig tunnels and they aerate the soil and it helps so the plants grow and get nutrients and air," she said.
There's also disagreement about how long the groundhogs have been living in this field. Kemp said he's seen them all 10 years he's lived in Clinton, while Lippens thinks it's more like four years, with the numbers growing each year.
Groundhog babies generally stay with their mom until they're about two months old, Steines said, then they like to go on their own. No one can say how old any of these groundhogs are or if they're males or females.
"Males usually don't want to be around other males, so they will set up their own territory and it doesn't overlap other males, but females will overlap with other females, other males and stuff," Steines said.
With so many groundhogs living in one place, the weather prognosticators could be a strong sample on Feb. 2 to tell us Mother Nature's plans for spring.