Wednesday, July 11, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Nature’s digging
machine
A caller from Pine
Meadow Village left a mes-
sage asking about a wild
mammal that moved in next
door and left a big hole and a
large mound of what it took
to make the hole.
She thought it was a bad-
ger, which from what she
told me sounded correct.
However, like a lot people
meeting a badger up close
and personal, she was pretty
apprehensive as to what to do
next.
So here’s a few words of
advice and a little informa-
tion about the badger who
lives in Sisters Country:
First and foremost, bad-
gers are predators; they make
a living by eating other ani-
mals, including insects and
creatures they discover while
digging holes in the ground.
Generally speaking, if you
leave them alone, they, in
turn, will leave you alone.
I’m 90 years old and
believe me, I have the scars
to prove that axiom: Leave
the wild animals alone who
share this good earth with us,
and most of the time they’ll
leave you alone. Be impolite,
and push it, and you can end
up in a lot of trouble. I had
to have an ear sewed back on
years ago because I invaded
— with blatant disrespect —
the territory of a pair of great
horned owls, and the male
convinced me I should have
had better manners.
So, lets get to the
American badger (Taxidea
taxus). They can — as many
humans have discovered
— protect themselves with
extreme vigor. They are
armed with sharp teeth, pow-
erful jaws, incredibly strong
digging feet and claws, and
in addition, because they
are in the mammalian fam-
ily, Mustelidae (skunks and
such), they can also stink up
the countryside.
The hole out in Pine
Meadow — like most of the
others left behind by badgers
— was dug in its search for
food. Badgers have a very
good sense of smell, and
when they pick up the scent
of what is becoming our new
and not so nice neighbors,
the Belding ground squirrel,
they begin to drool and start
digging into the bedroom of
said ground squirrels and eat
as many as they can.
I say ground squirrels
are not very nice neighbors
as they are known carriers
of the fleas that carry the
bubonic plague. I don’t know
about you, but I’d rather have
a neighbor who eats ground
squirrels than one who asso-
ciates with fleas that transmit
some very nasty diseases.
Horse people can, how-
ever, tell you how badgers
can wreak havoc with the
hole-digging business. It is,
unfortunately, not uncom-
mon for a horse to fall into a
badger hole and break a leg.
Badger holes are used by
coyotes as a beginning of a
den in which to raise puppies.
Burrowing owls will also use
badger holes as their homes
to raise their babies. In fact,
the relationship between bur-
rowing owls and badgers is
like the Columbia River and
ocean-going salmon; one
is very dependent upon the
other.
Badgers are champions of
going into the earth quickly
and vanishing completely.
Nature put them together
that way. They’re built close
to the ground; their front
paws tear up soil and plants
like jackhammers, and their
back paws are like power-
ful shovels that send soil and
rocks flying, and the animal
7
virtually sinks
into the ground.
In Oregon,
American badgers
occur throughout
the region east
of the Cascade
Range and in
eastern Jackson
County wherever
prey is abundant.
They are largely
nocturnal but are
occasionally seen
abroad during
daylight hours.
The Oregon
Department of
Fish and Wildlife
classifies badgers
as unprotected
mammals, along
with coyotes,
gophers, moles,
mountain beaver,
striped and spot-
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
ted skunks, and Caleb Anderson, author’s son, investigating
weasels.
a dead badger hung on a fence far out on the
Anyone can Great Sandy Desert.
shoot and kill
badgers anywhere they are concern.
It is my opinion, after
allowed to use a firearm.
Because of the badger’s spending the last 50 years
diminishing numbers, in prowling about the Great
May of 2000, the Canadian Sandy Desert all spring, and
Species at Risk Act listed recent golden eagle studies
both Taxidea taxus jack- and not seeing but one or
soni and jeffersoni badgers two badgers per season, that
as a subspecies, and the without some type of protec-
California Department of tion the remaining American
Fish and Game designated badgers living in Oregon will
the American badger as a end up a species of concern
California species of special very soon as well.