They are everywhere.

In the 70 acres of bush that I call home in Haliburton County, I estimate there are nearly 300 of them, and many more just beyond my property lines. They have me surrounded and I have visions of them taking over the entire world.

An exaggeration? Well, wildlife researchers say that one acre of land could hold as many as 30 of them.  You do the math: the world has 37 billion acres of land and if each acre has 30 of them, they total 111 billion, outnumbering us humans by 104 billion.

So yes, chipmunks are taking over the world. My world at least. 

I can’t walk a short distance without having one or two scamper across my path. When I cut firewood with my chainsaw, one comes close and stares up at me with a look that says: “Why are you here making all that racket?”

When I’m eating lunch on the deck, another approaches with accusing eyes: “Sure, we let you share our land but you won’t share a morsel of your lunch!”

I don’t know where they all came from suddenly. There have been reports of chipmunk population explosions in parts of eastern Canada and the United States over the past two or three years. They have been regional increases, not widespread, with no definitive reasons.

Some wildlife experts say a milder winter and an abundance of acorns might be a reason. 

Chipmunks in Canada usually have one litter of newborns a year while in the warmer south they have two litters – one in the spring and one in the fall. There is a theory that warming temperatures are shortening winters, allowing for two litters a year in parts of Canada.

Chipmunk litters usually are four to six kits, so an extra litter a year could increase populations significantly.

These little guys are cute and charming and amaze us with their busyness. They never stop scampering about, looking for things to eat and digging tunnels.

They store seeds, bugs and acorns in their little cheek pouches, which researchers say can hold more food morsels than most people would imagine. A researcher found that one chipmunk packed 60 sunflower seeds into one of its pouches.

Other research has determined that a four-ounce chipmunk can gather and store up to eight pounds of food a year in its underground burrow. Tunnelled burrows are as much as three feet below the ground surface and can be more than 30 feet in length.

The extensive burrowing is an issue for some people. They say that large numbers of tunnelling chipmunks can damage retaining walls, deck supports and even house foundations. Others say there is no real evidence that chipmunk tunnelling causes much landscape structural damage.

They can, however, give gardeners grief. This year we had no sunflowers because they dug up all the seeds we planted – several times. They also love to nibble on ripening tomatoes.

The biggest knock against chipmunks simply being fun little cuties came this year from Lake Tahoe, California. The United States Forest Service closed several popular Tahoe sites when bubonic plague was discovered among chipmunks there.

Bubonic plague occurs naturally in some higher elevations and is found in small rodents, such as chipmunks, and their fleas. Humans are infected if they are bitten by those fleas.

Bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death, killed millions of people around the world centuries ago. Today it is treatable and curable with drugs.

When chipmunk populations explode and damage lawns, gardens and flower beds, some people demand extermination programs. However, we humans need to accept that we just can’t kill everything that disturbs our treasured modern lifestyles.  

The U.S. Forest Service understands that. When some Tahoe chipmunks were found with the plague last summer it said it would not start eliminating chipmunks. Controlling the fleas would be a better approach.

At any rate, chipmunks carrying the plague are not an issue in our part of the world. They pose no threat to us, if we watch them from a distance and don’t try to handle them.

As to them taking over the world, I guess that is an exaggeration. The little guys live only two or three years on average.

Thoughts of chipmunks roasting on an open fire

I need to confess: I have harboured bad thoughts about chipmunks. Murderous thoughts.

I know, chipmunks are cute and fun-loving little critters. They have drawn millions of smiles as the Disney characters Chip and Dale and have enthralled children in comic books and video games.

And Alvin and The Chipmunks made chipmunks world famous with their blockbuster hit The Chipmunk Song (“Christmas Don’t Be Late”) in which Alvin wishes for a hula hoop.

I never really took to that song, preferring instead The Twisted Chipmunk Song, which headlined the 2000 Christmas album Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire.           

The reality of chipmunks is that they are rodents. Mice and rats are rodents and people don’t consider them cute and cuddly.

Also, chipmunks dig holes. Not just holes, but holes that are connected by tunnelling systems as elaborate as the catacombs of Paris or Rome.

Despite having millions of acres of forest to dig in, chipmunks prefer to conduct their excavations in gardens, lawns and septic beds. Lovingly planted seeds and bulbs have no hope of sprouting in chipmunk territory.

When they are not digging up my property, chipmunks are eating. They never get full. National Geographic Kids magazine says that a single chipmunk can gather 165 acorns in a day.

They carry off acorns, stolen bird seed, and anything else they can mooch, in cheek pockets that can stretch three times the size of their heads.

Many people view chipmunks as social creatures, animated and friendly and always willing to participate in a friendly game of tag. They often are seen chasing each other but these are not friendly games of tag. They are angry, hot pursuits to recover food one chipmunk has stolen from another.

Chipmunks also are not friendly with other critters. They are at constant war with the blue jays who visit our feeding stations.

They chase the jays off the seed piles then squeak and chipper at them not to come back. The jays sit in the trees, jeering loudly in protest and waiting for an opening to swoop in and grab a mouthful of feed.

There are pauses in the war when the chipmunks have filled their cheeks with seed and must return to their catacombs to store it for winter hibernation. Unlike bears they don’t sleep through the winter but get up often to eat their stored food, then go back to sleep. 

They sleep well on their full stomachs. The National Wildlife Federation says that a sleeping chipmunk’s heart rate slows to four beats a minute compared with the hyper rate of 350 beats a minute when they are awake.

All this is interesting information but it does little to subdue my murderous thoughts, which increase when I think about chipmunk reproduction rates. Female chipmunks can give birth twice a year, producing two to eight pups each time.

I have counted as many as eight chipmunks around the bird feeding stations. I calculate that if half of them are females producing eight pups each twice a year, that’s 64 new little chipmunks to put up with each year.

These calculations nourish my murderous thoughts. A possible 64 new chipmunks a year over 10 years is 640 chipmunks, and so on.

Far too many. I need to start reducing their numbers. Rat poison? Mechanical traps? Pellet gun?

I have read that you can buy fox urine and spread it around their tunnelling areas. They sniff it, fear that a fox is waiting to eat them and move away.

That sounds like the product of a super-charged marketing imagination. Besides how does anyone go about collecting pee from foxes?

As I ponder these thoughts, I hear a chipping sound and feel something at my foot.

I look down and see standing on the toe of my shoe a cheery looking chipmunk. He stares up at me with bright, saintly eyes and squeaks happily.

I’m not fluent in chipmunk talk but he seems to be saying: “Why so glum, chum? Relax and have some fun. Wanna play a game of tag?”

He jumps off my shoe and races toward the bird feeders.

That little face is so adorable. My heart melts; my murderous thoughts evaporate.

Some rodents are cute and cuddly.