Attention groundhogs, woodchucks and whistle pigs: Cleveland is coming for you. 

The city’s Division of Animal Control is taking a new tack in its turf war against the bane of back yards. It’s hiring an expert in nuisance wildlife to trap groundhogs and such other unwelcome critters as raccoons and skunks. 

City Hall’s go-fer for this work is Freeman Nuisance Animal Removal and Remedy, based in Wellington, in Lorain County. Cleveland plans to pay $200,000 to send Freeman trapping across the city. The company will catch wildlife and euthanize them, per Ohio law, Chief Animal Control Officer Bruce Campbell told City Council during Wednesday’s budget hearings.

Freeman will also do more. The company will repair the damage that critters have left to residents’ properties at no charge to them, Campbell said.

“This is a big issue with council, the groundhogs, the skunks and all the other critters that are out there,” said Safety Committee chair and Collinwood gardener Michael Polensek. “I tell people, the only thing I haven’t seen in my back yard is a bear, and I’m waiting for that one.”

In the past, the city left residents themselves to monitor groundhog traps, Campbell said. This year, Freeman will mind the traps instead.

“We don’t want a child to go out there and see, look at the pretty kitty in a trap, and it’s a raccoon or groundhog that takes their finger off,” Campbell said. 

The city reported 1,711 trapped wild animals last year. But no matter how many woodchucks and other varmints Cleveland chucked, nature replaced them. And to borrow a phrase, more Marmota monax, more problems. 

As council members will tell you, the land beaver is nothing to laugh at. Seniors have been “terrorized” by wildlife, Council President Blaine Griffin said. He floated drastic measures. 

“The coyotes are a natural predator to the groundhogs,” Griffin said. “I’m so fed up with groundhogs that I was ready to insert a whole pack of coyotes into the neighborhood.”

But first Cleveland will try the traps.