Badgers dig large holes when hunting for prey. To capture prey, badgers give chase and then will burrow after their prey effectively trapping the animal. They are even known to block entrances to burrows dug by communial rodents like ground squirrels prior to digging after the prey. Badgers spend much of their time in burrows. Badgers are highly specialized for digging. When burrowing, they use their large claws to dig into the soil leaving telltale scratch marks along the sides of the burrow.
Throughout their territory, badgers will have several burrows and will often switch burrows within two days. Capture and Relocate. Lynx reintroduced to some western states were captured by foothold traps in the Yukon, Canada.
Red wolves, Mexican wolves and Grey wolves were captured by foothold traps, examined and relocated to establish new populations. Some are used for captive breeding programs by wildlife officials. Lyme disease is spread by the tiny deer tick. Ticks feed on blood, and infected ticks transmit the disease as they feed. Although the deer tick prefers to feed on wild animals, especially mice, birds, opossum, raccoon, and deer, they will also feed on dogs, cats, livestock, and humans.
When people visit or live near deer tick habitats, they run a high risk of contracting Lyme disease. For your own safety, you should become familiar with tick habits and habitats, and you should learn how to prevent tick bites. About the Badger.
Taxidea taxus Order: Carnivora Family - Mustelidae. Badgers are well known for their digging habits and nasty dispositions when they are forced to defend themselves. An important predator of gophers and prairie dogs, they favor prairies, open farmlands and deserts.
Numerous excavations make badgers unpopular with some farmers and ranchers. Viewed with either affection or disgust, badgers are expanding their ranges eastwardly. Adult badgers measure 30 to 35 inches in length, including a short and well furred tail of 5 or 6 inches. Body shapes are wide, giving a flat backed appearance. Many adult badgers weigh 12 to 16 pounds, although weights might increase to over 20 pounds in the late fall as they store up layers of fat to sustain them during periods of cold weather and deep snow.
Colors are mostly grey, with a grizzled effect due to long guard hairs that have a black band ending in a white tip.
Underfur is either a light tan, or a creamy white. A white stripe from the nose leads between the eyes and back over the head of the badger, ending between the shoulders. Ears are set low along the sides of the head. Lower legs and feet are black in color. Badgers have 34 teeth, including four sharply pointed canine teeth. All badgers have a pair of musk producing glands near the anus as well as two skin glands located on the bellies.
Badgers are territorial throughout most of the year. Most territories are about 3 or 4 square miles. The size of the territory might vary somewhat due to the availability of rodents, a preferred food. It seems as if territories are not defended against other badgers, or territories overlap regularly in good habitats. Habitats with sandy or porous soils are preferred. Badgers frequent wooded areas when soils are suitable for digging.
Other than the dispersal of juveniles, badgers do not seem to emigrate. Typically walking from place to place, they can trot or bound along at a gallop when they chose to.
Badgers have excellent senses of hearing and smell. Both serve in locating food species, which are usually rodents in underground dens. Vision is good, and enables a badger to recognize danger at a distance. Badgers have been known to plug the exit holes of prey species before the badger tunnels underground to capture the prey. The long claws serve to loosen the soil and pass it backwards where the hind feet kick the soil out behind the digging animal.
This dirt is often kicked backwards 6 or 8 feet in an almost continuous arc by a badger digging in earnest. Badgers close their eyes as they dig underground. They rely upon smell and hearing to continue digging towards the prey.
Even though Badgers have relatively small territory zones, a number of dens are used regularly over different parts of the territory. These underground dens are quite often elaborate. Most tunnels are 6 to 8 feet deep and 20 to 30 feet long to the main chamber which is elevated to discourage flooding.
A smaller chamber s also dug underground to serve as a toilet area, and many dens have several entrance holes. Dens that have been used for generations by badgers may have as many as 30 to 40 exits, and tunnels as deep as 15 feet. Bedding grass and leaves are sometimes removed from the den chamber for airing out by a den entrance, after which it is taken back down into the chamber for reuse.
Some badgers have demonstrated that they will tolerate a fox or coyote sharing the same den. In , a lost Canadian boy shared a den with a badger, which at first tried to drive him away, and then appeared to adopt him by bringing him food. Badgers are determined fighters when they are threatened. Their loose fitting skin prevents the from being held securely by another animal. Badgers do not hibernate, but they do sleep for extended periods of time in northern states during extended periods of cold weather and deep snow.
Wintering dens can sometimes be found in woodlands, where the frost does not penetrate as deeply. They can stay underground for weeks at a time, but they come out to hunt occasionally as they do not store food. Other than rodents, badgers also eat skunks, snakes, birds and their eggs, worms, insects, berries and carrion. Rattlesnakes are eaten when a available but the badgers do not eat the rattlesnake head. Carrion is probably an important winter food when the frozen ground is difficult or impossible to dig in.
Badgers are largely nocturnal. In winter, badgers do not hibernate but reduce their activity during periods of cold weather.
During the summer months, activity is mainly concentrated around the setts and the feeding areas and travelling between locations. During the autumn, badger feeding activity increases to accumulate body fat reserves for the winter. A secondary peak in the number of road casualties occurs at this time.
Badgers live in a system of interconnected tunnels and chambers called a sett. Every badger clan has one main sett, which is used for breeding and is usually relatively large. Well-established setts have been excavated by several generations of badgers, with some setts known to be occupied for centuries. The size of the sett is influenced more by the soil type than by the number of animals living within it. In addition to the main sett, most clans have one or more secondary setts. Secondary setts are less important to the badgers than main setts, but they are useful nonetheless especially if the main sett is disturbed or there is a breakdown in the social structure within the clan.
Disused setts may be taken over by rabbits or by foxes, and both these species have been known to co-habit with badgers in occupied setts. In the chambers inside the sett, the badgers make nests in which they sleep.
Periodically, fresh bedding material typically dry grass, straw, bracken or dead leaves is collected and dragged into the sett. Setts can be located in wooded areas or scrub, although more recently there is a tendency for setts being excavated in hedgerows in areas of improved pasture. The badger is an omnivore, primarily a forager, eating an extremely wide range of animal and plant foods. They are opportunistic. Badgers have been known to regularly visit farm buildings and gardens if there is a readily available food source.
February is the peak month of the badger main mating season, but they can mate at any time of the year. Eggs fertilized after mating develop into tiny balls of cells called blastocysts. These remain in the uterus until a trigger factor causes implantation allowing development to resume. Regardless of fertilisation date, implantation nearly always occurs in late December or early January. Following weeks of normal gestation, birth occurs from late January to early March, with the majority taking place in the first half of February.
Litter size can vary between 1 and 5 normally 2 or 3. Cubs spend approximately the first eight weeks of life underground, emerging in late April or early May. Although badger cubs are born at a time of year which maximises their chances of survival, on average only one out of every three cubs survives to be one year old.
Male and female cubs become sexually mature at around months of age and may mate before the end of their first year, in areas where food supplies are plentiful.
Badgers in the wild can live for as long as 15 years. However, most badgers die young and the average life span is just three years. Badgers are usually wary of humans. Some also live in woods, quarries, hedgerows, sea cliffs and moorland.
American badgers are typically found in the Great Plains region of North America. Honey badgers are found in southern Africa; hog badgers live primarily in Southeast Asia, India and Sumatra. Badgers are also found in large numbers in the United Kingdom. Badgers have strong limbs and sharp claws that help them dig burrows and find food underground.
They make their homes by digging tunnels and caves and use grass and leaves for bedding. Setts have a special chamber reserved as the bathroom because badgers are clean creatures, according to the Somerset Wildlife Trust. Many badger species are very social creatures and live in groups called a cete or clan.
A clan shares territory and setts. Setts can be centuries old and are used by many generations of badgers.
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