American Badger (Taxidea taxus)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

      Savanna
      or Fields/Pasture

Habitat List:

view size class definitions

Literature:

The badger dwells in open country and primarily resides in the western portion of the continent. It was not common or widespread in the Great Lakes basin before European settlement, but extensive forest clearing allowed this species to expand its range eastward and northward into much of our area. It prefers grasslands, old fields, and pastures and rarely ventures into woody habitats.

A badger's diet is heavily laden with fossorial rodents, such as the plains pocket gopher, thirteen-lined ground squirrel, and woodchuck. A badger also eats voles, mice, ground-nesting birds, bird eggs, grubs, caterpillars, and adult insects.

Habitat Preferences: The badger's natural home area is open land (grass and shrub) where visibility of the surroundings may be a necessity and, perhaps more important, the clay or sandy soils are suitable for excavating burrows. In Michigan, old fields, cleared pastures, sparse brushland reverting slowly to timber, and even open woodlots may be homes for the badger. Heavily wooded areas, found principally in northern Michigan, are the least likely habitats for badgers.

Food Habits: Badgers ingest very little vegetable material, preferring fresh animal matter, although carrion is also eaten. As mentioned earlier, the geographic distribution of the badger coincides closely with that of one of its major foods, the various species of ground squirrels.

Key Components of Habitat: Nonforested habitats with soils suitable for burrowing and support of fossorial prey.

Management Actions to Enhance or Maintain Habitat Quality: Maintain grassland communities of sufficient size, or interspersed with agricultural land to support prey base.

Habitat: Badgers occupy the treeless habitats of the Transitions and Upper Sonoran life zones. Altitudinal distribution extends from below sea level (Death Valley) to elevations higher than 12,000 feet. Some recent reports of the badger in Missouri have come from heavily forested areas. In Minnesota the winter activity of a badger was confined to a woodlot, and the home range of another involved grassland and oak savanna.

Local distribution, or at least local activity, depends on the occurrence of fossorial prey. For example, Clark et al. found that badger activity was positively correlated with the size and number of burrow openings in prairie dog colonies. Johnson et al. observed a strong positive correlation between transect counts of badger burrows and Townsend ground squirrel holes.

Dens or burrows play a central role in the ecology and foraging strategy of badgers. Badgers may therefore avoid extremely rocky soils or soils that otherwise prevent digging. In Idaho, resident animals (those with established home ranges) avoided cultivated areas. The burrows and associated mounds produced by badgers are important in the ecology of other plants and animals. Small mammals and a variety of other animals use abandoned badger dens.