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MONTREAL — The roundup and exile operation unfolded with a combination of stealth, practice, patience - and carrots.
Pest-control expert Jean-Guy Côté surveyed the territory to track down his prey: a buck-toothed rodent that moves like a bowling ball and wreaks havoc with one of the most glamorous and money-drenched sporting events in Canada.
Grand Prix is only days away. It was time to trap groundhogs.
For most of the summer, Montreal's Île Notre Dame is a groundhog idyll, a bucolic refuge in the St. Lawrence River where the creature burrows and suns itself peacefully among cyclists and joggers. The groundhog - considered a member of the marmot family - is even the park's unofficial mascot.
A groundhog narrowly escapes a Formula 1 car during a past Montreal Grand Prix. (Bernard Brault/La Presse)
But each year in June, this groundhog haven is turned over to the worship of speed and noise known as Formula 1 racing. And civic officials begin a relocation program, trapping and transporting the animals to the Laurentians.
"Sure, groundhogs are cute. They can be tamed and become a pet," the no-nonsense Mr. Côté said yesterday as he inspected his 15 steel cages littered with carrot bait. "But they're pests. They can ruin your land. You need to control them to keep them in check."
The contest of marmot vs. machine at the Grand Prix tends to end badly for both parties. For starters, the two are unequally matched: A Ferrari on a straightaway can exceed 300 kilometres an hour. Groundhogs move at top speeds of 15 km/h, when they're in a hurry.
("They can only outrun Jacques Villeneuve," quipped Mr. Côté, referring to Quebec's favourite-but-underachieving race car driver.)
The animals end up dead. The drivers and their million-dollar cars fare better, but not always well.
"If a car is travelling at 330 kilometres an hour and hits a groundhog, it can get the driver's visor a little dirty," said Paul Wilson, a spokesman for the Canadian Grand Prix.
"It's not a laughing matter. At that speed, any hazard on the road can be a danger," he said.
The point isn't to eradicate the groundhogs - only about 30 were relocated last year.
"Our objective is to ensure the drivers are protected. We have to be on guard."
In fact, driver Ralf Schumacher narrowly missed a groundhog during a Grand Prix practice run in Montreal last year. Britain's Anthony Davidson actually hit one during the race and later blamed a "beaver" for his misfortunes, a misplaced claim about Canada's national emblem that was picked up in headlines around the world.
Despite the collision risks, some question the ethics of removing groundhogs from their natural habitat on the former Expo islands.
Martin Léveillé, a biologist with Quebec's Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, says that although relocation poses no threat to the animals' survival on Île Notre Dame and its sister Île Ste-Hélène, it does raise humane issues.
"The groundhog has probably been there forever," he said. "We've created a habitat for the species. Then, for the needs of an event, we disturb them. I don't find it very ethical."
The timing of the Grand Prix coincides with the first forays of young groundhogs out of their burrow, raising the risk that their first contact with the human world would be beneath the tires of a 600-kg car.
"When we decide to undertake control projects, we have to think of the consequences. They're never without consequences," Mr. Léveillé said. "When we relocate the groundhogs, they have to adjust to the territory they reoccupy. And in the case of females, they can be separated from their young."
Ultimately, the trapping operation underscored the quiet power of the four-footed Marmota monax, capable of disrupting a highly orchestrated display of wealth, flash and technology.
At the Gilles Villeneuve circuit yesterday, while red-suited racing-team workers hustled around glittering cars in the paddock and staffers swept the seating in the VIP grandstands, few took notice of the suitcase-sized traps close to the track.
If the groundhogs were left there until the Sunday race was over, they'd have the best seats in town - and then, they could just go home again.
