Moment in Nature: Woodchucks
"Sunday Morning" took viewers today to the Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in Falmouth, Maine, home to a gathering of woodchucks. The footage was by videographer Mauricio Handler.
Woodchucks are large North American marmots with a coat of silver-gray and brown. The name "woodchuck" derived from the Delaware Indian word for the animal, oijik (pronounced "wee-jak"). They can be thieves, as when they were found to have stolen 75 flags from Civil War-era gravestones in a New York cemetery in 2012.
The term "groundhog," which describes the same animal, is a Southern invention. (The animal can be found across the Eastern U.S. as well as in Alaska and Canada.)
The Gilsland Farm wildlife sanctuary, operated by Maine Audubon, is situated along the Presumpscot River estuary outside of Portland. The 65-acre sanctuary features an environmental education center and more than two miles of trails.
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