Local phase of badger project winding down
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Laurel Beechey - For the Tillsonburg News
Many of the human species know Tillsonburg is a great place to live and it turns out that badgers, Judy and Doug, are of the same mind.
The badger is an endangered species in Canada and to discover what is causing their decline a long term study was needed.
Josh Sayers of the Ontario Badger Project has been working on this project for five years and notes, “It took two years of gathering sightings, driving around the countryside looking for potential burrow locations, etc. in order to find enough burrows to actually start trapping at. This is the last full year of tracking planned. Next year we will only be tracking occasionally in the spring and early summer to determine whether the three females have young.
“We have put radio-transmitters (implants, not collars, as badgers don't really have necks!) on 10 badgers – five adult males, three adult females, and two juveniles, one female and one male.”
The badgers of Norfolk County and Tillsonburg have been a gold mine of information. A surprise to everyone was the distances that badgers travel. The accompanying map shows the range of six area badgers.
Josh tells us about Tillsonburg’s badgers, “The female badger whose territory overlaps Tillsonburg is Judy. She actually has a number of burrows within the town limits, though because these are in the ravines, very few people have ever spotted them. We put a transmitter on Judy's kit last year, a female named Jane, who dispersed out toward Mount Salem when she matured. Judy has another kit this year, a male, who we named Doug. He has now dispersed [set out on his own] and unfortunately we lost him on the very first day. We had searched high and low for him – all the way out past Port Stanley. And guess where he showed up? Less than 2 km from his last position two weeks earlier.”
That would be in the north end of town.
'Brian' was the first badger they implanted in 2012. He is in the Straffordville area and also frequents Tillsonburg as did another adult male, John.
Unfortunately three of the 10 implanted badgers were hit by cars last year, John being one. Two other deaths were suspected to be of distemper. However, although necropsies were done, not all the test results are in. Josh recently noted that the distemper was looking less likely.
People in our area assisted by locating badger burrow by the roads and in our ravines. Myself and several other rehabilitators would go out to the burrows, take photos, measurements, GPS readings and if lucky we found the occasional hair or scat sample. Going by scat or simply by watching the animals, the researchers now know what they like to eat.
“We have documented badgers eating a variety of prey including chipmunks (which may be their favourite), groundhogs, mice, frogs, and turkey eggs. Despite their reputation as tough animals, they are no threat whatsoever to people.”
As special note to me, the Skunk Lady, he said, “You're not going to like this, Laurel, but we've discovered they also eat skunks! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have you admit it's pretty interesting from an ecological perspective...”
Previously we had only known the Great Horned Owl as a skunk predator.
“We don't know how many other badgers might be found within each territory, but it would likely be no more than five (if that). A population estimate is difficult but a reasonable guess based on what we know is that there may be as few as 50 badgers within Norfolk and the surrounding area.”
The actual tracking portion of the study is winding down. Josh tells of the study’s future.
“Our main objective next year will be a large outreach campaign to farms across South Western Ontario – well outside the Norfolk country area (i.e. Badger Country). We hope this will result in many reports that will allow us to determine with more certainty what their distribution in the province is. With any luck, we may even find that they are more widespread than previously thought. That would be great news indeed, though we certainly aren't expecting it. Then we will be summarizing and analyzing all the findings from the project and making a report of our findings (which will be made available to the public).”
Remember, if you are fortunate to catch a glimpse of a badger [most likely at night], or God forbid, hit or find them as road kill, please report it immediately to info@ontariobadgers.org or the toll-free hotline (1-877-715-9299). You can visit the webpage (ontariobadgers.org) for more information about badgers.