After Badger Buries Entire Cow Carcass, Scientists Go to the Tape
Original article by Nicholas Bakalar - NYT Science
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A badger captured on a trap camera after it buried a cow carcass.
Credit Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Lab/University of Utah
Scientists reviewing video from camera traps watched dumbfounded as a 16-pound badger worked four days to bury a 50-pound calf carcass.
Badgers, carnivores native to the American West, are generally nocturnal and spend most of their time in burrows. They are known to cache food to eat later — squirrels and rabbits, typically. No one has ever seen a badger put away such a large hunk of meat.
A selection of sequential trap camera images of a badger burying a cow carcass.
Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Lab/University of Utah
The scientists had put out seven calf carcasses in an attempt to study scavenging behavior. At one site, the carcass had completely disappeared. A look at video from the camera trap was enough to see what had happened.
After burying the carcass, the badger built a den next to his large food supply. No other badger visited the site.
“It’s a substantial undertaking,” said Ethan H. Frehner, an associate instructor in biology at the University of Utah.
Well... if squirrels can hoard acorns...
One of the most voracious animals around. There are not many animals that want to take on a badger.
Rattlesnakes are prey to the Badger.
Interesting to see the video, I don't think I would want to try to take that carcass away from him.
That's amazing! Badgers are the bad-asses of nature. So are the ones in Africa.
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We don't have any badgers around our area. Of course we have a badger dog...The fearless Doxie. Born and breed to hunt badgers.
Wait a sec, K... Is that the same dog whose photo you posted the other day?
Indeed it is Bob...They are well known as badger hunters. Dachshund, translation, ''Badger Dog''...
Looks are deceiving, but don't be fooled she took on a red fox at the house and the fox turned tail.
It's true that she looked FEROCIOUS in that photo...
I can easily see her taking on a critter that buries whole calves...
Herding cattle, hunting wild boar, badger it makes no difference to a Dachshund.
OK
Dachshunds are wolverines in mufti...
LOL
They are tough little dogs. My wife wants to get one after (I hate this thought) we lose the Shih-Tzus that we have now.
We didn't have badgers where I grew up in Michigan, but further north in the state's forests once upon a time we had Wolverines, which are pretty bad ass themselves. They are rare in Michigan now, which is a shame.