Catching sight of one during daylight hours maybe hit-or-miss, but they’re out there or down there.
American badgers (Taxidea taxus) are mostly nocturnal creatures that live in burrows they dig underground in open areas with sandy soil. They are known to live in every county in California. Photographic evidence proves badgers reside on the Merced NWR, but few people have ever actually seen one, and it isn’t for lack of trying.
The animals measure about 28 inches head to tail and weigh 10 to 17 pounds. Their bodies are flat, their legs short, their feet large with big heavy claws designed for digging. They are yellowish-brown with white on their feet and the tops of their heads. They have a white streak running from the tip of their noses over the top of their heads to their shoulders, and black patches on their cheeks.
As hunters, badgers are ferocious and relentless but don’t run down their prey like other carnivores.
The animals eat pocket gophers, voles, ground squirrels, and other burrowing rodents. Using their powerful claws they dig their way down a burrow to the unlucky critter living there.
Just how a badger knows there is a meal deep underground is not clear. It may be it hears whatever is hiding beneath ground, or it may be able to smell its victim. In whatever way its perception is honed it is as sharp as the eyesight of a hawk.
Badgers construct underground burrows for protection and sleeping, and other burrows in which they give birth to and raise the next generation. The living quarters may be near shrubs, but the burrow dug to raise its young is almost always dug clear of anything that would obstruct a 360-degree line of sight.
Badger burrows can be nine to 10 feet below ground, contain 30 feet of tunnels and an enlarged sleeping or brood chamber. A badger’s range can be more than 100 acres.
They hunt alone or sometimes in pairs and mostly after dark when humans aren’t there to see them.
It’s as if Mother Nature is tweaking Alfonso Bedoya’s famous line from John Huston’s 1948 movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, “Badgers? I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badgers!”
The San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, Merced National Wildlife Refuge and the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge comprise the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Its headquarters and visitor center are located just north of Los Banos off Highway 165 at 7376 South Wolfsen Road.
The refuges are open to visitors daily from one half-hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset. The visitor center is open Monday through Friday except federal holidays from 8 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
