![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d6dc11dc-079a-49cb-b55b-f9acbf9129b9_a1d23fb3.jpg\" "\\"This")
This large rodent \u2013 Sapu Mountain Wildlife Groundhog \u2013 commonly referred to as a woodchuck or whistlepig, is a member of the marmot family. Photo: Shutterstock<\/p>\nA scenic road trip in southwestern China unexpectedly turned into a quirky \u201ctreasure hunt\u201d when a tourist\u2019s car keys were snatched by a playful groundhog, prompting an entire village to join in a frantic digging mission to recover them.<\/p>\n
The unusual incident took place on August 3 in Genie Town, Litang County, Sichuan province, when a netizen known as \u201cDog Brother\u201d shared his experience online. He recounted how a groundhog grabbed his keys in its mouth and swiftly darted back into its burrow while he and his friends were exploring the area.<\/p>\n
Fang, a female member of the group, explained that they had ventured to a spot near a groundhog burrow, where several of the animals were emerging in search of food. Her child, thrilled by the sight, immediately grabbed some fruit and snacks from the car to feed them.<\/p>\n
This large rodent \u2013 Sapu Mountain Wildlife Groundhog \u2013 commonly referred to as a woodchuck or whistlepig, is a member of the marmot family. Photo: Shutterstock<\/p>\n
With plenty of treats to share, they placed the snacks \u2013 along with a mobile phone and the car keys \u2013 into a single bag nearby while the children entertained themselves feeding the animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo my surprise, while my attention was diverted, a groundhog not only \u2018stole\u2019 snacks from the bag but, right before my family\u2019s eyes, dragged the car keys into its burrow,\u201d Fang recalled.<\/p>\n
Despite their efforts to retrieve the keys with a stick, they could not reach them, prompting them to seek help from the local villagers.<\/p>\n
An online trending video showed how swiftly villagers and local tourism volunteers arrived at the scene, uniting in a \u201cdigging holes\u201d and \u201ccarpet search\u201d effort to recover the car keys.<\/p>\n
![\"After](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f19342ee-8516-4eec-93b6-81a98a9eeda0_39dd3342.jpg\" "\\"After")
After the groundhog grabbed a tourist\u2019s car keys and hid them in its burrow, the entire village came out to help recover them. Photo: thecover.cn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scenic road trip in southwestern China unexpectedly turned into a quirky \u201ctreasure hunt\u201d when a tourist\u2019s car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[5675,5665,5687,5666,5669,5681,381,5214,5679,5671,5690,18,5678,5661,5672,5677,19,17,5683,5689,5680,5682,5685,5688,5674,133,5684,5668,5670,4597,5662,5673,5676,5686,5667,5663,5664,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-5516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-accident","9":"tag-animal","10":"tag-burrow","11":"tag-burrows","12":"tag-car-key","13":"tag-car-keys","14":"tag-china","15":"tag-chinese","16":"tag-chinese-netizens","17":"tag-digging","18":"tag-dji-action-4-camera","19":"tag-eire","20":"tag-genie-town","21":"tag-groundhog","22":"tag-hidden","23":"tag-humorous","24":"tag-ie","25":"tag-ireland","26":"tag-litang","27":"tag-litang-county","28":"tag-marmot","29":"tag-marmot-burrow","30":"tag-marmots","31":"tag-party-secretary","32":"tag-quirky","33":"tag-science","34":"tag-sichuan-province","35":"tag-steal","36":"tag-stranded","37":"tag-theft","38":"tag-tourists","39":"tag-tunnel","40":"tag-vehicle","41":"tag-village-head","42":"tag-villagers","43":"tag-wild","44":"tag-wilderness","45":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}