Ah, the age old question that so many have tried and failed to answer. Now I know this may sound strange, but I actually had a serious conversation with someone about this, so I thought it was about time for some real midnight ramblings, and I’ll attempt to answer the question myself.
What we have to really think about here is what actually is a woodchuck? Is it a beaver? A gopher? Is it even necessarily a type of rodent? If it is in fact a rodent, then at least we know what we’re dealing with and we know it’s a creature with gnawing, nibbling and chewing or “chucking” wood in its nature. If it isn’t, then our views of woodchucks have been wrong for decades!
One Google check later and we have our definition of a woodchuck. Thanks, Wikipedia!
So our sources say that a woodchuck is a groundhog (made famous by the film Groundhog Day). Now we’re onto something. A groundhog is not the same as a beaver and is not typically a wood chucking/nibbling/gnawing creature. Think of them as bigger and furrier squirrels but with less climbing abilities. They’ll go about their lives, hibernate in the winter and generally not chuck wood. That seems to be the end of the question then. However it is the IF that makes this more of a query then it needs to be. If they could perform this act of woodchucking, then it is an open ended question because we have to consider:
- The size of the groundhog
- The size of its teeth
- Its personality (lazy, active, etc)
- How long the groundhog has to chuck the wood
- The chucking wood’s source
- The type of chucking wood
- Etc.
There are endless factors that can come into the equation when trying to figure this out, so why even bother (unless someone can give me the formula). If we leave the question as “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?” then the answer will be simple: None. They can’t.
I apologise for my ramblings, but I often think of odd and random things and I like to think this helps aid in creativity. I’ll be less random next week…maybe.
Ramblin’ Night Owl