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Yellowstone Badger: A Citizen Naturalist Project

Yellowstone's badgers



Report 1 of 1
Report details
Reporter: Paul Stillmank  (Paul's web site)
Date taken: 06-03-2010
Date posted: 03-22-2015
Caption: Badger mom and 3 kits
Notes: We had spotted this "hole" as we drove back to Mammoth the prior day. It had been a rainy couple of days so we decided against a hike that day (Thursday, June 3, 2010) and instead decided to go get moving early and just set up a tri-pod and point it at the mound/hole and see what came out of it, if anything. We arrived around 6:15 a.m. local time and go everything setup. It was not raining, but the ground was wet, so we just sat on our rain-coats and waited. From 6:40 a.m. until about 8:10 a.m local time, we got the treat of the trip. First a badger sow popped its head up (exciting enough) and then, one by one, her kits appeared. She managed them very diligently, keeping them close and not allowing any one to straggle away. One of the kits was more active and she had to nip it on the cheek and toss it back down the burrow a couple of times. We took countless photos have uploaded for exceptional shots. One or more of the kits was digging in the dirt as you can see in one photo. Just after 8 a.m., the sow lead all of the kits down into the burrow and then re-emerged and left (to go hunting?) traveling North East. We waited for hours for her to return, hoping to see what she might bring back. We had read that Badgers eat small grubs, worms, other small burrowing mammals and even porcupines. So we waited, but to no avail. We then wondered if she had another entrance to here burrow that we could not see, so we exited the scene to grab lunch and review our photos.