Groundhog fight!!

Territorial aggression

Added 2011-03-22

Cycling towards home today along Millwood I noticed a steady stream of water coming down from Village Station Road. There was a small lake forming from an obvious water main break, not in itself particularly noteworthy, but as I stopped to reconnoiter, I saw a pretty grim scene right by the fence next to the Leaside hydro transformer station.

Two groundhogs, approximately equal in size, healthy-looking (i.e. apparently well fed), were locked in a pretty grim struggle which I can only assume was based on a territorial dispute.

Each had his jaws locked upon the other, as they pushed and wrestled back and forth aound the entrance to a burrow.

For a while, they disappeared below ground, then back up again to continue in earnest, as one seemed to be trying to evict the other from the burrow.

Eventually one seemed to gain the upper hand, as he had his jaws on the back of the other's neck.

The loser of the fight, after a good ten minutes of struggle, suddenly gave up and ran away, to another burrow some thirty metres away, likely his own. I imagined him sulking down there, licking his wounds.