Some low life critter done went & ate a hole in my liner

I dug my pond all by myself. That was 13 years ago. I decided to make it a circle, 13 feet across and 3 feet deep. That comes out to 3,000 gallons. First thing I did, after about 3 days, was to go buy $5.00 worth of 12 for $1.00 feeder goldfish. So we started with 60 goldfish and went from there. We eventually added koi, but never had more than 7 or 8. The koi grew to 24" before we lost them one night during a power outage. By the time I got out there and restored the filter/waterfall, the koi were gone, but they didn't come up o we could find them or know that they were dead for 3-4 more days. That really hurt. It still does. My kids name the koi and many of the goldfish that are uniquely marked. There was Festus, Kyoto, Nemo, Albino Rhino, and many more.

The reason I wrote to you now is because of the leak in my liner. Once we drained the pond and gave away all the fish, we could see the problem, and knew it was a critter. I had seen rats in our garden before so they were nearby, but someone suggested it may have been a vole; I don't know for certain. Please see the photos and see for yourself. I can see the teeth and claw marks.

We plan to put in a new liner, but we are poor people and need to get money ahead to buy one first so it may take us a few years.

Please make a guess at what you think chewed through my liner (the hole is 2 feet down) and how I can be certain they won't do it again. A brick I put down that was part of a small patio, pond side, has become unstable and now sits at a 45 degree angle. It dips down toward the pond, perhaps 18" away from thee edge of the pond and 18 north of where the hole in the liner is. The hole itself is perhaps 10"-12" from top to bottom and 6"-8" across. Why would the critter continue to chew through the liner if water would immediately begin to flow through and fill the cavity created by the unknown critter? Do rats dig holes like that?

Any suggestions as to what I should do, besides rat poison, would be greatly appreciated. Critter control is a priority before I even THINK about a new liner. hitman962

I pulled up the brick and I think that's the entryway for whatever got between my liner and the ground. It (whatever critter it was) dug a hole between the liner and the brick away from the pond, then did a 180 with its digging back to the liner. It dug a nest under that brick but must have been forced to move when the brick half caved in. There's a hole, perhaps 2" across, going down towards the hole in the liner, off one corner of the brick closest to the hole. Something has caused an avalanche of dirt above the hole, downward, probably the tunnel going down to the liner hole so I'll have some repair work to do when I remove the old liner.

Copy that. Good idea. I had to dig through a foot of gravel when I got down near the two foot mark and much of that, 1"-2" in size, got piled up, but also used as needed since then so I'll have to buy more.

Should I plan to begin to apply poison pellets and/or traps around my empty pond in the spring? I really don't know what else to do. I have seen rats, but that's it for critters, but I'll be asking neighbors if they have seen anything I haven't and go from there. We have a canal, that's connected to a river that flows through our valley, and the canal runs behind our house. It attracts many different animals. And of all the houses on the block, the lone deer that wandered into our section of the canal, the deer jumped our fence because of our pond and waterfall, all of which could easily be seen from the canal. The canal dries up in the winter and begins again in the spring through the fall. People use it to water their gardens.