Those of you who deal with badgers

[Westwind]

I’m from northwest Illinois. There have always been a few badgers around but I don’t see them or sign of them very often and always thought they were interesting animals.

Recently started to see badger sized holes and would put a camera on it and not get any pics.

Backing up a little, a few years ago I started to see an occasional ground squirrel when I was mowing. Started seeing them down by the road. They were always around the edges of my warm season grass plot. When they started showing up in my yard, I started shooting them with my air rifle. (Shot two yesterday.) Went out to mow yesterday and there is a big hole right by a ground squirrel hole. Did some googling, I learned that badgers dig up the damn ground squirrels hunting them which is why I’m not getting pics when I put a camera on the holes.

My warm season grass patch is a south facing hillside. When I walked it last spring shed hunting it was full of holes.

I figure the next damn thing will be a bumper crop of snakes.

For those of you that have lots of badgers around, what are your thoughts on this? They are protected here but how do you guys think about them and have they become a nuisance animal?

What are my next steps beyond filling holes? Now I’m wondering if I need to mow that warm season grass patch a few years which I hate to do as it is a great little bedding area and I’m seeing the occasional quail and pheasant.

 

[ksJoe]

I have a lot of holes in land. Some are from armadillos. Some are from badger. I shoot the armadillos and leave the badger alone.

One day a few years ago I heard something upwind of me in the grass. So I pulled out my phone and stood still. The badger came out 15-20 yards from me and continued along around me not knowing I was there while I recorded video of him. After a few seconds I asked him if he was gong to say hi. Then it looked at me and took off.

The holes it creates are not a problem for me. If it was doing damage, I'd do something about it.

 

[Westwind]

We don’t have armadillos here yet. Was working in Southern Illinois a few years ago and something caught my attention in the ditch and thats what it was.

 

[Stubborn1VT]

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!

 

[Turkey Creek]

From someone who professionally trapped nuisance animals for a number of years, you are better off eliminating the prey base for the badgers. No food, no badgers. Badgers are very nomadic. They will come back to an area, but it might be days or weeks between visits. If they are protected where you live you obviously cant trap them anyhow. Ground squirrels, pocket gophers and prairie dogs are their main food source. They are one digging machine I have seen them excavate a large hole in the middle of a rock road like it was butter. All the badgers I have trapped over the years I just considered incidentals. I wouldn't say for certain anyone of them I intentionally targeted.

 

[buckdeer1]

We have quite a few badgers in Kansas but most of the holes we see are coyotes or armadillos

 

[H20fwler]

Very rare to see one here, they are on our states protected list. When they built our super Walmart fifteen years ago on the edge of town a family of badgers held up the building of it for almost two years while they live trapped and relocated them.

I used to waterfowl hunt in Alberta a lot had a buddy that lived there, and he hated badgers like it was his job. He would shoot everyone he would see like we shoot yotes. We were driving down a stone side road one morning and came up on a badge right in the middle of the road…it went flat and started digging straight down. Just like Turkey Creek said about them, it looked like it was riding an elevator down it sunk into the road so quick.

 

[Westwind]

From someone who professionally trapped nuisance animals for a number of years, you are better off eliminating the prey base for the badgers. No food, no badgers. Badgers are very nomadic. They will come back to an area, but it might be days or weeks between visits. If they are protected where you live you obviously cant trap them anyhow. Ground squirrels, pocket gophers and prairie dogs are their main food source. They are one digging machine I have seen them excavate a large hole in the middle of a rock road like it was butter. All the badgers I have trapped over the years I just considered incidentals. I wouldn't say for certain any one of them I intentionally targeted.

This makes sense. I didn’t know they were nomadic but that makes sense too. Only saw one here on my place once and he didn’t stick around for pictures! I do have a trail cam pic in the back of my property.

I’ll work on the ground squirrels. Thats kinda fun anyway.

 

[H20fwler]

Pic of youngest son with one about twenty five years ago.

 

[Westwind]

That is badass!!!!!!!!!!

 

[H20fwler]

OK, craziest badger story ever.
Over twenty years ago I'm duck hunting out in Alberta with my buddy that lives there, I had brought along a young coworker that was around 24 years old.

We are driving from one hunting spot to another, and this badger runs across the road.
My buddy that lives out there goes all glazed eyes and screeches to a stop to go after it...I had been through this drill before and had told my coworker how crazy he was about badgers.

So, we jump out grab&load the shotguns up all in like ten seconds and get after this badger, terrain is short grass prairie. Kid with me spots the badger about twenty yards away and shoots it. We rush over the badger looks mortally wounded but dives down this hole, the kid quick as a flash reaches right down the hole up to his arm pit and pulls the badger back out flinging it up into the air. Badger lands on the ground and is pissed, I shoot and settled it down.
All of this from when truck stops to dead badger can't hardly have taken thirty seconds.....then it all sinks in, he pulled an angry wounded badger out of a hole?
Never in my life had I seen anything that crazy and stupid at the same time! But what a story.
Kid skinned it and had a nice wall hang made out of it, his first and only badger ever. We still talk about it at work, and he still can't explain why he reached down that hole like that, just adrenalin, I guess.

 

[b116757]

Trapping as a kid we caught a badger he had pulled his paw out of the trap except about 3 toes he had a 6’ circle around the set torn to shreds he was pissed off very angry badger. We cut down a small tree and cut about an 8’ long forked pole out of it. One of us held the badgers head to the ground with the pole the other one let his foot out of the trap we both jumped into the jeep very quickly and by the time we pulled the jeep up to where he had been he had buried himself in a hole he somewhat started before we got there absolutely amazing how fast they can dig.

 

[KY wild]

Trapping as a kid we caught a badger he had pulled his paw out of the trap except about 3 toes he had a 6’ circle around the set torn to shreds he was pissed off very angry badger. We cut down a small tree and cut about an 8’ long forked pole out of it. One of us held the badgers head to the ground with the pole the other one let his foot out of the trap we both jumped into the jeep very quickly and by the time we pulled the jeep up to where he had been he had buried himself in a hole he somewhat started before we got there absolutely amazing how fast they can dig.

So I take it you were targeting fur to sell and since this critter was not valuable you took extra effort to let it go?

 

[Turkey Creek]

Well if you want to get an adrenaline rush or make your butt cheeks clench a little tighter dig into a fresh mound of dirt knowing down there somewhere is a badger with a foothold trap on his foot. My preferred method was a long handled shovel in one hand and a pistol in the other. Waiting for the "clink" of metal from the shovel blade hitting some part of the chain and then digging down enough to expose fur.

 

[goatman]

You can trap them in IL. Not hunt them. LOL

 

[Angus 1895]

I have a property that is basically abandoned. It was accumulating a large pigeon flock in the buildings. Badgers moved in. I trapped a few, I used dead pigeons as bait. Now the pigeons are gone. The badgers have moved on also it seems.

 

[Westwind]

I love these stories.

Badger lore is really interesting.

 

[b116757]

Badgers are the state animal in Wisconsin so we let him go had his leg been ruined idk what we would have done. They are such an interesting animal full of personality I have no interest in killing one I’m happy to leave them be.

 

[momark]

Souped up groundhogs. lol