On Tuesday, June 11, an American Badger showed up at Walters’ field across the road from their house in Horsefly. American badgers are a “species at risk,” as only about 200 of them are estimated to be alive in B.C.
Normally they are nocturnal, but this one may have been hungry as it was out hunting gophers in the daylight and I was able to film a couple of short videos of it as well as take numerous photos.
The badger stayed in a burrow next to our house for two days and then moved across the field to another location where it was more in the open.
Their habitat is open fields, and they have suffered much predation from people over the years because of the damage they do by digging huge holes as they hunt mice and gophers, or dig up roots.
This one seems to have moved on to greener pastures, or more private hunting grounds on its own, as we haven’t seen it since Thursday night when it was romping around after dusk.
Badgers are solitary animals, and because they are so elusive there is no accurate count of their numbers, nor much information regarding their breeding habits, or if there are colonies of them somewhere like groundhogs and gophers.
I had never seen a badger before now, nor have many people I know, so I am sharing these pictures with you. Remember they are a species at risk, and not open to be hunted or trapped.