Hard-working badger caught on video burying whole calf to feast on later

An enterprising pair of badgers caught burying calf carcasses in the desert may help repair the animals' reputation as pests.

University of Utah biologists were observing scavenger behaviour inUtah's Great Basin Desert when they first witnessed an Americanbadger dosomething no scientist had recorded before completely bury an animal three to four times its size to feast onlater.

But doctoral candidateEvan Buechley, lead researcher of a paper published Friday in the journal Western North American Naturalist, didn't actually set out to make a discovery about badgers.

In an interview with CBC News, Buechley said he planned"to study what different scavengers are in the community and how they contribute to nutrient cycling and decomposition."

He did this by staking the carcasses of seven calves to the ground and setting up cameras to capture what happened next. The stakes were used to prevent coyotes from carting the carcasses awayand out of the view of thecameras.

But when Buechleyreturned twoweeks later, one of the carcasses was missing.

"I was kind of disappointed because [setting them up]was a lot of work and then the carcasswasgone so soon," he said.

Buechleysearched the area but didn't find any remnants of the calf that mightbe evidence of a scavenger feast.

"Then I went back to the site and noticed a big den hole,and so downloaded the photos right there at the site. I had my laptop with me, so I could look through the whole photo sequence," he said.

The images show that, over the course of five days,the industriouslittle guy worked night and day to dig around and under the calf until it collapsed stake and all into a hole. The badger then covered theanimal and the hole in dirt.

It turned out that a second badger had managed to do nearly the same thing to another calf carcass, but hadn't quite managed to get the calf's staked leg below ground.

Burying ananimal to feast on latera process biologists refer to as "caching"effectively refrigerates it, preventing it from spoiling.

'Like hitting the jackpot'

Undergraduate biology senior EthanFrehner, lead author of the paper, said previous researchers had documented badgers burying small mammals such asjackrabbitsand squirrels, but nothing as big as the calves.

"These carcasses are 20 to 30 kilograms, or three to four times the weight of a badger,"Frehnertold CBC News.

And about 100 times the size of a more typical badger find, the prairie dog, saidBuechley. "It was like hitting the jackpot. This was at least a solid month's worth of food."

The cameras captured the badgers lyingbelly up in the sun androlling around in the dirt.

"Not to anthropomorphize too much, but they seem pretty darn pleased withthemselves," he said.

Badgers' bad rap

The findings could help toeventuallychange the perception of the humble animal,whichhas so far endureda reputation as a thorn in the side ofranchers.

"A large part of the concern is that the holes they dig, potentially trucks can drive into them and get stuck," said Frehner. "Cattle havefallen into holes and potentially hurt their leg. This is themain causeof conflict between ranchers and badgers."

Badgers have also been known to raid the odd chicken coop.

But this study opens the door to further investigation in how badgers might actually be more helpful toranchers than previously thought, saidBuechley.

For one thing, quickly burying a potentially diseased carcass could be helping to prevent the spread of disease to the herd, he said.

In addition,removing a big food source means larger predators such as wolves and coyotesare less likely to be drawn to the area, said Buechley.

He adds that,in a world where science is trending toward big data, discovering thisnew animal behaviour speaks to the value of doing good old-fashioned natural history "in your own backyard."

"Just going out and spending time in the woods or in the deserts there is still so many discoveries to be had."

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