20
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Where have all the
badger gone?
What is the status of the
American badger in Oregon?
No one really knows 4 and
I doubt if many Oregonians
care. From my experience
roaming through the coun-
tryside east of the Cascades, I
can accurately state that bad-
gers are targets for shooters
and for the most part hated by
a great many horse people; as
badgers dig in pursuit of food
and shelter, they create holes
in which horses break legs.
In the official Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wi l d l i f e w e b p a g e t h e
American badger is described
thusly:
< A m e r i c a n B a d g e r
Taxidea taxus. The bad-
ger is a medium-sized, but
powerfully built carnivore
strongly adapted for dig-
ging. The body is flattened,
the legs are short but stout,
the toes of the forefeet are
partly webbed and equipped
with long, curved claws;
the hind feet are shaped like
miniature shovels; and each
eye is equipped with a mem-
brane that can be extended to
cover it.
<The ears are rounded
and densely covered with
fur, but seem large in com-
parison with those of many
digging mammals. The tail is
short and brushlike. Dorsally
(meaning its back) the long,
shaggy pelage is mottled
grayish blending on the ven-
ter to light tannish or whitish.
A white stripe extends from
the nose pad to the shoulder,
and may extend to the rump.
The face is black with white
splotches surrounding a black
<badge= on either cheek.
Badgers molt annually.
<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 occasionally
may be seen abroad during
daylight hours.=
There is no mention that
in California the American
badger is a <species of con-
cern,= and in Canada, two
subspecies, Taxidea taxus
jacksoni and the T. t. jef-
fersonii are now listed as
<Endangered.=
Badgers matter.
B u r r o w i n g o w l s 4
another Oregon native wild-
life species under the juris-
diction and protection of
ODFW 4 have a hard time
surviving without badgers;
the holes they dig are the
best home a burrowing owl
can find, and they have a
tough time holding their life
together without them.
My good friend and Eagle
Scout Spencer Smith and
his step-dad, Steve, manu-
factured and installed three
artificial burrowing owl nest
boxes in the Fort Rock Valley
to help replace what badgers
once were supplying.
The American badger first
shows up on the fossil record
in late Miocene Epoch,
around 22 million years ago,
about the same time a new
great ape fossil was discov-
ered in Ethiopia.
The first (and only)
badger fossil in the US
of A was found in New
Mexico in 1935, and named
Chamitataxus for the rock
formation in the quarry
where only the skull was
discovered. Right alongside
the skull were fossils of our
present day pronghorn, then
known as Osbornoceros.
Even though paleon-
tologists have just one skull
from the 22-million-year-old
specimen, from it they have
gleaned enough information
to suggest the ancient ances-
tor of today9s badger had:
" A very good sense of
smell.
" A firm grip like its
modern equivalent and this
enabled it to kill burrowing
animals with a bite to the
neck.
" Excellent hearing of
low-frequency noises, which
it could sense at a long
distances.
" Was an expert hunter.
" Was able to prey on
many different types of land-
dwelling creatures during the
Miocene.
Throughout the last eight
years, my wife, Sue, and
I have traveled thousands
of miles of the high desert
until midnight every night
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countryside in our 4Runner,
surveying golden eagle nests
for reproduction. For the first
three years we did not see
one live badger 4 and we
were looking for them 4
but did see and count several
badger diggings, most with
spider webs in the openings.
Last year we came upon
our first live badger near
Glass Buttes, and found a
road-killed female on the
Bend/Burns highway in
about the same vicinity. It
would be very helpful for
gathering additional data
on the status of the badger
in Central Oregon if you, in
your travels, would take a
moment and report any bad-
ger sightings to ODFW, or
send them to me: jimnatural-
ist@gmail.com..
I noticed in last week9s
Nugget, Senators Michael
Denbrow and Jeff Golden
have sponsored Senate Bill
723 which will put an end to
organized contests killing of
coyotes and other wildlife.
This is one of the best things
that9s happened since the fed-
eral action to protect eagles.
Now, if the ODFW head hon-
chos could just take the hint
and give the badger and his
kin a break.
According to ODFW9s
website, anyone can shoot
a badger, all they need is a
valid Oregon hunting license
and permission to be on the
same land as the badger he/
she is about to shoot.
ODFW places our bad-
ger with non-protected spe-
cies such as coyotes, nutria,
opossum, porcupine, spotted
skunk, striped skunk, weasel
and a whole bunch of other
mammals 4 all of which
can be killed anytime, no
closed season 4 and anyone
12 years or younger doesn9t
need a license to do so.
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