American badger

Name and taxonomy

The scientific name is Taxidea taxus, and the species sits in the weasel family, Mustelidae. That family also holds otters, weasels, ferrets, martens and the wolverine. The American badger is the only living member of its subfamily, the Taxidiinae. The three other badger subfamilies are the Melinae, which holds the European badger, the ferret-badgers, and the honey badger. The stink badgers of Asia are not badgers at all but belong to the skunk family.

Several subspecies are recognised, and their ranges overlap so widely that intermediate animals are common. In Mexico the animal is sometimes called tlalcoyote. The Spanish word tejon means badger, but Mexicans also use it for the coati, which causes confusion. GBIF lists the vernacular names Blaireau d'Amerique in French and Amerikanischer Dachs in German.

Evolution and relatives

Genetic studies place the American badger as the sister group to every other living mustelid. Its lineage is thought to have split from the rest of the family about 18 million years ago. That came after the mustelids separated from the raccoon family about 29 million years ago. Its closest known relative is the extinct genus Chamitataxus, known only from fossils.

The European badger, the honey badger and the American badger reached the same body plan by separate routes. Each is a stocky digger with a striped face, yet each sits in its own subfamily. Like other burrowing carnivores, the American badger probably evolved its flat body and huge claws as it followed rodents underground.

Appearance

Animal Diversity Web gives a total length of 52 to 87.5 centimetres, of which the tail is 10 to 15.5 cm. Wikipedia gives a narrower typical range of 60 to 75 cm. Adults weigh 4 to 12 kilograms, and males are larger than females. Females average about 6.3 to 7.2 kg, and males reach 8.6 kg. In autumn, when food is plentiful, an adult male can reach 11.5 to 15 kg. Northern animals are bigger than southern ones, and in some northern populations females average 9.5 kg.

The body is flat and wide, and the legs are short and thick. The coat is coarse and grizzled, a mix of brown, black, grey and white that reads as a tan-brown from a distance. The belly is buff, and the throat and chin are whitish. The face is triangular, with black patches on the cheeks and a white stripe that runs from the nose over the head. In northern populations the stripe ends near the shoulders, but in southern animals it runs down the back to the tail.

The head is conical, the ears carry bristles, and a third eyelid protects each eye from soil. The forelimbs are powerful, with a strong upper arm bone and large bony ridges for muscle attachment. The claws on the front feet grow up to 5 cm long.

Habitat and range

The species lives across the west and centre of the United States, into the northeast, and south into northern Mexico. In Canada it reaches parts of southwestern British Columbia, the prairie provinces and the far southwest of Ontario. It has spread east since about 1900 and now occurs as far east as Ontario. GBIF holds records from 6 countries, but that count includes zoo animals and stray records.

Badgers prefer dry, open grassland: prairie, pasture, meadow and shrub-steppe with loose soil and plenty of rodents. They also use forest glades, marshes, brushy ground, hot desert scrub and mountain meadows. They occur from below sea level in Death Valley up to about 3,700 metres in the mountains. In Arizona they live in desert scrub, and in Manitoba their numbers rise where Richardson's ground squirrels are common. They avoid mature chaparral and dense forest, where digging is hard and prey is scarce.

A male's home range is larger than a female's, about 2.4 square kilometres against 1.6. One 1972 radio study found an average annual range of about 850 hectares. A female's range in that study shrank from 720 hectares in summer to 2 hectares in winter. Animal Diversity Web gives a typical density of about 5 animals per square kilometre.

Diet and hunting

The American badger is a carnivore that catches most of its food by digging. Its main prey are pocket gophers, ground squirrels, moles, marmots, prairie dogs, woodrats, kangaroo rats, deer mice and voles. It follows a rodent down its own burrow, and it sometimes plugs the other exits with objects before it digs. It kills many snakes, rattlesnakes among them, and in South Dakota it ranks as the top snake predator.

The badger also takes ground-nesting birds such as bank swallows and burrowing owls, plus lizards, frogs, fish and carrion. It digs out hibernating skunks, and it eats insects, including bees and their honeycomb. Plant food includes maize, peas, green beans, mushrooms and sunflower seeds, so the site lists it as an omnivore. It has been known to cache food for later.

The badger sometimes hunts beside a coyote. A ground squirrel that sees a coyote dives into its hole, and one that sees a badger climbs out and runs. When both hunters are present, the squirrel has nowhere safe to go. One study found that the coyote's catch rate rose by about 33%, and it is harder to measure the badger's gain. Most pairings are one badger and one coyote, but 9% of sightings involved two coyotes and 1% involved three.

Behaviour and social life

Badgers are solitary, and they do not defend an exclusive territory. They are mainly nocturnal, but in remote country with few people they often forage by day. A badger seen in daylight between late March and early May is often a mother that spends the night with her cubs. Badgers do not hibernate, but they become far less active in winter. They pass much of the cold season in bouts of torpor that last about 29 hours. In torpor the body cools to about 9 degrees Celsius while the heartbeat halves.

The badger digs by drawing its forelimbs back to break the soil, then throws the loose earth behind or beside its body. There are reports of badgers breaking out through blacktop and through concrete. A den can lie about 3 metres below ground, hold about 10 metres of tunnel, and end in a wide sleeping chamber. Displaced soil forms a mound at the entrance, and the living space sits under that raised roof. A badger uses many burrows in its range, and in summer it may dig a new one each day. In winter it may keep to a single den for most of the season.

Old badger burrows shelter foxes, skunks, cottontail rabbits, burrowing owls, tiger salamanders and California red-legged frogs. Badgers and coyotes tolerate each other and have even been seen at play.

Communication and senses

The badger has keen sight, a sharp nose and good hearing. Its front claws hold nerve endings that may give the forepaws a fine sense of touch, though nobody has tested this. The bristles on the ears and the third eyelid keep soil out while it digs.

Little is known about how these solitary animals talk to each other. They probably mark their home ranges with scent, and a female's scent is thought to tell a male when she is ready to mate. Like other mustelids, a cornered badger probably hisses, growls and snarls as a warning before it bites.

Reproduction and life cycle

Mating takes place in late summer or early autumn. Both sexes expand their home ranges at that time to find mates, and some males breed with more than one female. The fertilised eggs pause early in development and do not implant before December, sometimes not until February. A female is therefore pregnant for about 7 months, but the true gestation is only about 6 weeks.

The mother digs a grass-lined den, and the cubs arrive between late March and early April. A litter holds 1 to 5 young, and the average is about 3. Newborn cubs are blind, helpless and thinly furred, and their eyes open at 4 to 6 weeks. They first leave the den at about 5 to 6 weeks and are weaned at 2 to 3 months. The mother offers solid food before weaning and for a few weeks after it. Families break up between late May and August, and the young disperse in erratic movements.

Most females first breed after their first year, though a few ovulate at 4 to 5 months old. Males do not breed until the autumn of their second year. Wild badgers live about 9 to 10 years on average, and the record is 14 years. One captive badger reached 26 years.

Predators and threats

An adult badger is aggressive and has few natural enemies. Golden eagles, coyotes and bobcats take cubs. Bears and grey wolves occasionally kill adults. A 2019 study found that cougars are the main predator of adults, and one radio-collared cougar ate badgers as a main prey.

People are the biggest threat: habitat loss, trapping, hunting, poisoning and road deaths. One study put annual mortality at 35%, and some populations are up to 80% animals in their first year. Development breaks grassland into fragments, cuts prey numbers, and pushes badgers into contact with people as they cross between patches.

Population and conservation

The IUCN lists the American badger as Least Concern. It is fairly common in suitable habitat across its range, though scarce in some regions. No source in this file gives a total population count.

In May 2000 Canada listed the subspecies jacksoni and jeffersonii as endangered under the Species at Risk Act. In November 2012 the nominate subspecies was added as Special Concern. The British Columbia population was later split into a western and an eastern group, each listed as endangered. The Ontario animals form a small isolated population south of the Niagara Peninsula on the north shore of Lake Erie. California lists the badger as a species of special concern, and Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and British Columbia protect it from hunting.

Relationship with humans

People trap badgers for their pelts. The fur once trimmed Native American garments and made shaving brushes and paint brushes. Native Americans also hunted the badger for meat.

Farmers value the badger for the rodents it removes, since those pests carry disease and damage crops. Its burrows shelter small game such as cottontail rabbits. The same holes can break the leg of a horse or a cow that steps into one.

A badger does not seek out people, and no source in this file records a serious attack on a person. It defends itself hard when cornered, and like other mustelids it probably bites deep. It is a wild animal that digs, bites and smells, and it does not suit life as a pet.

In culture and myth

In Native American tradition the badger is a hard worker, a cautious animal and a protective parent. The Pueblo peoples count it among the six guardians of the directions, and it stands for the south and the colour red. The Zuni credit it with healing and protective power and carve stone badger fetishes for good fortune. The Hopi keep a Badger Clan and a badger spirit, the Honan kachina. A Lakota story tells of a spirit warrior who saves a badger family from a greedy bear.

English translators often confused the badger with the wolverine in Native stories. The wolverine plays the villain in those tales, while the badger is a positive figure. Wisconsin is the Badger State because territorial lead miners wintered in the holes they dug and earned the nickname. The badger is the state animal, and the University of Wisconsin plays under a mascot named Bucky Badger.

Most famous badgers of fiction are the European species: the badger of The Wind in the Willows and the emblem of Hufflepuff house. The dachshund takes its name from the German for badger hound, again a European tradition. In German-speaking lands the badger once served as a winter forecaster, and North America turned that custom into Groundhog Day.