Teach your kids about badgers

AMERICAN BADGER (ONTARIO POPULATION) COMPARE THE BADGER! 1.0 YEAR LIFE SPAN AMERICAN BADGER EUROPEAN BADGER HONEY BADGER 88 CM 90 CM 98 CM FAMILY LIFE SPRING HOW LONG KITS STAY WITH MOM LATE SUMMER find a mate! give birth! MONTHS Matchmaking Parenting Skills Male badgers will expand their typical home range when looking for a mate. Although breeding takes place in late summer, the embryo doesn't start growing until December or even February. The average female American badger has three kits per litter, but she can have up to five. Kits are born with thin fur and will be blind for 4-6 weeks until their eyes open. They stay in their den until they are five or six weeks old. Nursing stops at about three months, and they will venture off to live on their own at about six months. AMERICAN BADGER BIO: SKIN: Tough and loose HAIR: Silver-grey with tawny underside HEAD: Grey fur with black and white stripes, and powerful jaws for killing prey 90g 6. 9 kg LEGS: Short and very muscular FRONT CLAWS: Long, strong and perfect for digging BIRTH FULL GROWN MALE TAIL: Short and bushy A day in the life... SENSES: Outstanding hearing and American badgers are mostly nocturnal animals so they spend most of their days underground. Sometimes you might see them out in the morning, but when the sun is up, badgers usually hang out in their burrows where they sleep, raise their young and snatch up prey that runs by the burrow entrance. While the badger's underground lifestyle might not help you spot one, the time they spend digging underground is beneficial to their ecosystem. When badgers dig, they aerate the soil, meaning they turn up or mix the soil, creating room for water to travel deeper into the ground and reach plant roots. sense of smell Over the winter, badgers spend even more time in their burrows. That's because they enter into a state called torpor, which is almost like hibernation. This means that badgers are mostly sleeping during the winter months, but they occasionally wake up and go out to forage when the weather is warm enough. HABITAT A BADGER DEN CAN BE UP TO 3M UNDERGROUND, WITH ABOUT 10M OF TUNNELS AND A LARGE SLEEPING CHAMBER Their Home and Native Land... American badgers are found throughout North America, but the jacksoni subspecies in Canada is only found in Ontario. The jacksoni subspecies also occurs in the USA (Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio). Their perfect habitat is one with undistürbed grasslands, shrubby areas and woodlots, with sandy or crumbly soil. jacksoni jeffersonii laxus berlandieri 2 HOME RANGES CAN BE UP TO 5 00 km´ IF FOOD IS HARD TO FIND HUNTING Predatory Instincts While these opportunistic hunters eat a wide variety of mammals, birds, eggs, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and plants, American badgers in Ontario primarily prey badger has come up with some clever ways of hunting them. Groundhogs and Eastern cottontails. To catch these quick animals, the American Grasslands Cafe MENU 1) DIGGING They have large powerful claws that let them dig after prey with remarkable speed. They have been known to scope out potential burrows, plugging up all entrances except one, and then digging through the only opening to make escape nearly impossible. Grasslands Cafe MENU 2) TEAMWORK Occasionally, badgers have also been known to team up with coyotes to hunt! Coyotes will follow badgers around, watching carefully as the badgers dig furiously through rodent dens, and will pounce on Catch of the Day Groundhog (Marmota monar) any creature the badger misses. Badgers can benefit by waiting underground as the coyotes chase the rodents into their burrows. Eastern Cottontail (Syrilagus floridanus) SERVED WITH By working together, the badgers and coyotes have a "mutualistic relationship". They make effective teammates and increase the chances that they will catch something to eat. CONSERVATION STATUS: HELP SAVE ME! THERE ARE ONLY 200 BADGERS LEFT IN ONTARIO INTERNATIONALLY "LEAST CONCERN" (IUCN) International Union for Conservation of Nature IN CANADA ENDANGERED" ICOSEWIC) Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada THREATS HABITAT LOSS HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ROAD MORTALITY Disappearing Grasslands Isolated Populations Road Kill Much of the land badgers use every day is also perfect for American badgers living in Ontario already had difficulty connecting with other badger populations in the USA. When we build houses, farms and towns in areas where farms and cities. As humans develop this land, it is seriously affecting the amount of habitat badgers have to survive. When their habitat disappears or becomes degraded, badgers are left homeless. Now, as their territories become even more divided by development, it's a challenge for badgers to connect with each other even when living in the same province! badgers live, it brings more traffic. Since badgers need large territories to find prey and mates, they will often have to cross these roads. As roads get busier, more and more badgers are getting struck by cars. LESS THAN 1% OF CANADA'S TALLGRASS ISOLATED POPULATIONS CAN RESULT IN OVER 25% OF BADGER SIGHTINGS IN UNHEALTHY BADGERS (INBREEDING) AND CAUSE THEM TO TRAVEL EVEN FARTHER TO FIND PREY. PRAIRIE AND SAVANNAH HABITAT ONTARIO SINCE MID-1990S ARE BADGERS THAT WERE HIT BY VEHICLES. REMAIN, WITH ONTARIO HAVING THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DECLINE. HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP! GO TO wwW.EARTHRANGERS.COM BRINO BACK ne WILD PM HELPINO PROTEC THE AMERICAN BADGER START SIGN UP TO BECOME AN EARTH RANGER & START YOUR BRING BACK THE WILD CAMPAIGN TO HELP SAVE THE AND EARN RENARDE In the OCNTAIPONI ON THE WILD WIRE BLOG... AMERICAN BADGER TODAY! BRING BACK THE WILD www.EARTHRANGERS.com Sources: Eads DA, MTJ Hague, and CG Zoubek (20121. American badger (Taxidea taxus) uses covert reconnaissance to ambush a black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus). The Southwestern Naturalist 57:463-4b4. Encyclopedia of Life. Taxidea taxus - North American Badger. http://www.eol.org/pages/328595/overview Goodrich JM and SW Buskirk (1998). Spacing and ecology of North American badgers (Taxidea taxus) in a prairie dog (Cynomys leucurus) complex. Journal of Mammalogy 79:171-179. Hoodicoff C. (2006). Badger prey ecology: the ecology of six small mammals found in British Columbia. BC Ministry of the Environment. http://www.env.gov. IUCN Red List. American Badger. http://www.lucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/41663/0 Long CA (1972). Taxidea taxus. Journal of Mammalogy 26:1-4. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. American badger (Taxidea taxus). http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/groups/tr/amnr/aspecies/documents/document/270950.pdf Parks Canada. The badger - a species at risk. http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/bc/kootenay/natcul/natcul30.aspx Proulx G and N Mackenzie (2012). Relative abundance of American badger (Taxidea taxus) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in landscapes with high and low rodenticide poisoning levels. Integrative Zoology 7:41-47. Shefferly N. Taxidea taxus. Animal Diversity Web. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Taxidea_taxus.html Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. North American Mammals: Taxidea taxus. http://mnh.si.edu/mna/image_info.ctm?species_id=401 Species at Risk Public Registry. American badger jacksoni subspecies. http:l/www.sararegistry.gc.ca/species/speciesDetn nwaiudab22 Species at Risk Public Registry, American badger jeffersonii subspecies, http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/species/speciesDetails_ Tumlison R, DB Sasse, ME Cartwright, SC Brandebura, and T Klotz (2012). The American badger (Taxidea taxus) in Arkansas, with emphasis on expansion of its range into Northeastern Arkansas. The Southwestern Naturalist 57:467-471. w.bc.ca/wld/documents/techpub/wr109.pdf