by Donald F. Hoffmeister, _Assistant Professor of Zoology and Curator
of the Natural History Museum, University of Illinois_
[Illustration: _Photograph by E. P. Haddon, Fish and Wild Life
Service_]
Although for many years the badger was common in Illinois, it all but
vanished from this State about the first half of the 19th century. By
1861, an Illinois biologist commenting on the badger wrote that the
species had “nearly abandoned the State,” and by the latter part of the
past century the badger was definitely on the wane in Illinois.
But strangely enough, within recent years the badger once more has
increased in numbers in northern Illinois and has reinvaded some of the
territory it formerly occupied in central Illinois. It is most abundant
in our northwestern counties, but even as far south as Fulton County
this animal has been seen in nearly a dozen different localities in the
past ten years. Two badgers were taken nearly as far east as the Indiana
line in 1953. The badger, in spite of man’s attempt to control it,
apparently is increasing and spreading.
Although you may live in an area where the badger is common, it would
not be surprising if you had never seen this animal, for it is abroad
principally at night. However, its presence is usually well known by the
abundance of its diggings. The badger is excellently equipped to dig,
with powerful forelegs tipped with long, strong claws. It is squat and
streamlined for getting through—not over—the ground. More than once, a
group of men have cornered a badger in a shallow burrow, but one badger
with its own digging apparatus extended the burrow faster than the crew
of men could shovel. When pursuing or pursued, the badger never rests on
its “shovels”, but keeps them going at such a rapid pace that the tunnel
behind is soon filled with moved dirt. The front legs loosen the dirt
and push it under the animal, where the hind legs pick up the process
and continue the earth on out behind. The operation proceeds like an
endless track, without a wasted motion. As many as ten men, all equipped
with shovels, have failed to keep up with the excavating of a badger,
and the latter has escaped their intents. Ten men against a 30-pound
badger! No wonder it has been called a master excavator. With the
powerful front legs, the badger is not readily deterred in its
burrowing. I have seen where a badger had decided to come to the surface
from its subterranean burrow beneath a heavily macadamized road. The
well-packed rocks, gravel, and tar, some four or five inches thick, were
torn away and a sizeable hole made as if no roadway were there. A
captive badger was given the run of a concrete basement. This seemed
like a safe enough place. However, the animal found a crack and enlarged
it until he was successful in removing a piece of concrete.
The badger is yellowish gray in color, with a conspicuous white stripe
on the head, extending from the nose over the forehead, and disappearing
on the back. Because the animal belongs to the weasel and skunk family,
it possesses scent glands and a strong odor which is emitted only
infrequently. When tormented, the badger holds its stubby tail erect,
skunk-fashion, and hisses in a menacing way.
In Illinois, the badger is at home on the rolling, sandy prairies, as
well as on prairies with heavier soils. Franklin ground squirrels,
thirteen-lined ground squirrels, woodchucks, and meadow mice provide
food for the badger population. When prey is sensed in the badger’s
underground burrow, the dirt flies until the hunter has it securely in
mouth. Snakes, frogs, insects, and rabbits also are eaten; and because
the majority of these items in its diet are pests of man, the badger is
considered a most important animal in northern Illinois in keeping small
mammals in check and is vastly underrated as a natural control of many
of our pests. To condemn the woodchuck and badger, or the ground
squirrel and badger, in the same breath would be like despising both
garbage and the garbage man.
Badgers have a single litter of young each year in May or June. The
young are cared for in a nest at the end of a protective subterranean
burrow. In wintertime, badgers are said to hibernate, but they do not do
so in the strict sense of the word. They may become inactive during
periods of extreme cold, but they do not enter into the deep sleep, with
reduced metabolic activities, that the woodchucks and ground squirrels
do in Illinois.
In our State, the badger has few, if any, enemies, other than man. Man
traps the badger, makes unusable some of its preferred habitat, poisons
off the squirrels and woodchucks which are its preferred source of food,
and runs it down on the highway. The fur of the badger nowadays has
little or no value, but in former years it was in demand, and a badger
hide, at inflated prices, would have been worth as much as ten dollars.
Conservationists maintain that it is unwise not to give some protection
to one of our most interesting mammals, a potentially valuable
fur-bearer, and a foremost controller of rodent pests.
May the “diggings” of the badger, the next time you encounter them,
thrill you with the thoughts of one of Illinois’ first and foremost
engineers, a master excavator.