Paul Ryan’s in the clear: big ground squirrels known as marmots — and yes, a woodchuck is a species of marmot chuck cars. And trucks. And bicycles, according to Daniel Bloomstein a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies marmots.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says his car was eaten by woodchucks, NPR reports. The furry rodents spent the winter munching on the congressman’s Chevy Suburban, which had been parked at his mom’s house in Wisconsin, Ryan said at a talk in DC. The car did not weather the woodchuck invasion well. “It’s just dead,” he told the audience, according to NPR.
There’s another marmot-repelling strategy that Ryan may be more reluctant to try: urine. “Some studies have shown that mountain lion urine or lion urine on the apples keeps them away,” Blumstein says.
Read Article