An animal living in the "cities"
Valery SIKIRZHITSKIY, "Respublika" (The Republic) newspaper, No 137, July 29, 2006
Hunters, scientists and fans of nature have given many flatter epithets to a badger - able, accurate, true and clean. The way of life of badger essentially differs from other representatives of the family of martens, for example from mink, weasel or ermine. It does not climb on trees and is not the absolute predator but it lives in "cities". Alas, this peculiar and attractive animal, however, is already under protection of a Red Data Book for the quarter of century and its quantity is insignificant in Belarusian woods.
There is a permanent problem concerning poaching extraction of badgers, first of all because of suet and fat - valuable medicinal means. According to literary data, they help treat over 50 diseases. Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to open the facts of illegal extraction of badgers because the animal is not so great like, for example, an elk or wild boar, while silent methods are used to hunt for it. However, the first case to catch a poacher by Vladimir Tyshkevich, head of the Sector of Hunting Management and Game Fauna Resources of the Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, was connected with badger.
This happened in 1994 in the Berezinsky forest enterprise where I worked a hunting manager. An animal was shot near to a hole. However, this case is an exception. The most often cases are to place catching loops and traps on badger paths. Nevertheless, it is not easy to catch this animal. It is very strong and can quite often break away from "iron embraces", remaining to be moved on three paws. The change of terms to open the hunting season (by means of collective beating a forest for game) from November 1 to October 1 also brings an effect to make the number of badgers low. The wood inhabitant gets ready for hibernation in this period and fattens, while dogs often disturb it. A hunter can also get confused a running in heather badger with a wild boar. In despite of seemingly slowness of badger, the largest representative of the family of martens runs very quickly.
If a dog will catch up a badger, no each is able to win it. The overtaken animal turns back to a tree, sometimes on the back paws, and begins to get defend. It is necessary to say that it manages well to do this. Having such terrible weapon as claws and paws trained by digging holes, the badger can kill a dog at one stroke. Being blocked in a hole, it either does not surrender itself for a long time. Hunters recollect cases when a badger just dug dogs in side-holes or, creeping under them, pressed them to a ceiling and broke a back.
However if do not touch it, badger is quite peaceable. For example, it can get on together with a fox or raccoon dog. The lazy animals simply occupy one of the exits of a badger's holes, while the hardworking owner should frequently dig the new one.
Old holes of badger are like real architectural buildings with several floors and numerous exits. They can reach to 5 meters in depth. Badger is a great stay-at-home and, having grown roots at one place, frequently lives in some generations. Such the settlement existing since 1930 is known at the village of Rozhno in the Berezinski Reserve, while some of badger's settlements of the area about one hectare, according to researches, have been appeared even earlier.
Engineer on hunting management of the Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergei Kraiko has casually found such the "ancient city" with approximately 25 side-branch-holes in the Logoisk district at the village of Koren (Root). However, it was abandoned but the new settlers will again possibly come here. Young badgers of two years of age, after leaving a parental house, quite often settle in dwellings of the ancestors.
Sergei Kraiko happened to meet more four dwelling settlements in last autumn in the Teterinsk Game-Hunting Ground of the Mogilyov region. One of the holes, very old, was situated on a slope of the Drut River.
It was obvious that the whole had the dwellers, Sergei said. Hills of ground recently dug were all around. Paths are made from the exits. The badger often rams down the paths by a stomach. It also seeks to make a dwelling near water sources, on an eminence. The most of the badger's settlements in Belarus are in the Vitebsk region. There are a lot of dense woods there which cover sandy soils easy for digging. About 40 settlements which totaled 151 animals were found in the Polessie Radiation-Ecological Reserve in 2000. This means that badgers are most numerous in places where disturbance is lesser. So, in the territory of the Brest region Belovezhskaya Pushcha is apparently the only of their home.
Within the area of its habitation, the animal both keeps cleanness (even a lavatory is situated in a specially selected place) and marks the territory. It has a specific skin gland in a special pocket at the beginning of the tail. The badger leaves the gland's secretion on the borders of the possession, by this mean giving to know that this site is under occupation. On the other hand, the stable smell not only warns the relatives but also helps a male to find a female.
By the way, a badger's pair (a male and female) is usually stable for all their life. The only animal lost a life's companion for any reasons leaves the area in search of a new partner. In February – March a mother gives birth to two to six youngs, while the pregnancy can last nearly a year.
Badger looks for food exclusively orientating for smell. It also uses smell to be orientating on a terrain. Perhaps, badger has the most sensitive nose among wood mammals. Maybe, its snout is therefore as the extended as badger has always to get used to the smell. Although badger belongs to the order of predators, it is not averse to treat itself to berries, nuts, acorns, as well as apples and pears. The interesting fact is that badger, being very omnivorous in different seasons, consumes only one kind of any forage by separate trip to get fed. It's remarkable that mouse-rodents and larvae of harmful insects are often the most of the badger's prey. For example, within its "lunch" site (badger mainly eats at nights) the big-nosed animal annihilates about 75 percents of larvae of may bug (cockchafer). Badger is very useful by eating locusts and mole-crickets.
However, badger has a lot of enemies in a wood. The smell of badger is a signal for a wolf and lynx to get the wish for having a snack. However, no any wood predators inflict as big losses for a population of the hard-working and useful animal as the man does. We already talked about illegal poaching. It is possible to add economic use on territories where badgers' dwellings are located, as well as cutting down of old-age woods etc.
However, it is also necessary to note a positive tendency - the number of badgers in Belarus increases last years. For instance, according to data of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection, their number totaled more than half a thousand specimens (for comparison, there were only 529 ones in 2001) in our woods last year. However, experts consider that they are possibly even more numerous, about two thousand. It can be added that badger is of international importance regarding nature protection. It is on a list of protected animals' species of the Bern Convention and a subject of a Red Data Book of Ukraine.
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