Animal Story, Badger, Blog, Children & Families, Seen Thru New Eyes | February 4, 2010
We held a parent-child-animal event recently and everyone was fascinated with Miss Clover. It is rare to get a chance to get up close and personal to a badger. So many people have told us, as they walk up to her, “there’s the meanest thing on four legs.” (And some of these people teach!). Isn’t true. To prove it she usually licks Jean affectionately on his nose. 
A fearsome reputation helps a lot if you are little and flat in a big dangerous world and can’t see too well to boot. It is useful to protect yourself by a shoot-first-and-ask-questions later philosophy. A wild animal feeling threatened protects itself! What a concept! But the tragic part is your bad reputation prevents people from seeing the sweetness that is there when you feel safe. If we approached the wild ones with a different attitude and care, we might have a different experience altogether. They have a huge sense of curiosity when not feeling threatened. They want to know about us, as we do about them – life in one form (badger) meeting itself in another form (human).
Miss Clover, a safe and relaxed badger, has a great sense of play and humor, and is extremely affectionate. She is very verbal and expresses her feelings quite clearly. All of them. She giggles and sings, and positively purrs at the sight of Jean. She follows him around on badger walks ( a bit slow as she stops frequently to dig). And when guests come she charms the pants off of them. ( “I didn’t know a badger could be like that!”). Miss Clover strikes another blow for badger awareness. And perhaps opens our mind to the possibility that other wild animals might have a sweet side too.
Badger, Coyotes | November 18, 2009
A Combination that Works…Together
We brought Miss Clover the Badger and Streak the Coyote out into a field. They had never officially met before. After some experimental sniffing and digging, Miss Clover found a likely spot for a meal and started to dig for real, dirt flying up behind her like a little brown geyser. Streak stopped, watched what she was doing, and parked himself at what turned out to be a second entrance. A vole came shooting up seeking safety from the onslaught behind it. Streak pounced, caught it, held it in his mouth, walked around to Miss Clover and trotted up to her as she continued furiously digging, oblivious to the vole on the other end. Streak tossed it invitingly up in the air. She ignored it – she probably didn’t even notice she was so into her digging. He did it again. She didn’t see. Still holding it delicately between his jaws, he tried bumping her in the side with his nose to get her attention. It didn’t work. He bumped her side with his nose again, harder this time.
Finally pulled from her focus, Miss Clover noticed, stopped digging, and making for Streak bumped him back, decisively, in his side. Still intent on a friendly encounter, he bowed, hind end up in the air tail wagging, front legs flat on the ground, inviting her to play.
It would be nice to be able to report that she responded to the clear invitation to play, but that is not the case. Despite all his best seductive efforts, she single-mindedly returned to her digging. But she did not attack him. She wasn’t even irritated – she was simply otherwise occupied and telling him to leave her alone.
Seen through the lens of biology, the likely explanation is that there is an advantage to coyotes to hunt with badgers. That makes sense. But it doesn’t mean that is the only thing going on. What was the “advantage” for Streak in inviting Miss Clover to play? Why was there no aggression on her part? Perhaps when relieved of the stress of needing to find food, safety, territory in which to hunt, an entirely different side of wild animals has the freedom to express itself. Perhaps when given the opportunity, without stress, they enjoy the company of species other than their own. I would like to hear your thoughts.
Badger | November 18, 2009
Miss Clover is now an elderly badger. She is going on 12 years old. When we noticed her slowing down a couple of months ago we attributed it to age. But watching her over the days and weeks, dreading the possibility that we might lose her, we decided to have a vet check her out – perhaps there was something else going on. Jean packed her up in her travel box and took her to Summer, the Victor vet that agreed to see if she could help. Ordinarily one might think that packing up a badger would be difficult, but Miss Clover idolizes Jean. She will do anything he asks. Mostly.
She arrived at the clinic in tact. The following are Summers’ words: “Growing up in Victor on a ranch I had seen my fair share of badgers, although none up close and personal and certainly none with first names. Although I had been close enough to know that they had very sharp teeth and claws, I was intrigued by this elusive creature Jean brought to the clinic. When I got close to her carrier, she hissed at me. The funny thing was that when Jean would get close and talk to her she would come nose to nose and start purring. I was very surprised at her reaction to Jean. You could tell how much she adored him. The problem was I had to examine her, not Jean. The only logical way to go about this was to sedate her. We got Miss Clover positioned in the carrier so I could give her a shot. Considering this was the first badger I had ever worked on, I wasn’t sure exactly how much sedative it would take, so I extrapolated doses for cats since badgers are small carnivorous creatures. The hardest part was trying to figure out how much she weighed. She looked quite large in the cage but she had a tremendous fur coat. Not wanting to give her too much sedative I started with smaller dose and we waited and then we waited some more. Miss Clover did get a little sleepy but every time I touched her she would lift her head up and hiss at me. At this point I decided to take her to the back in the carrier and use gas anesthesia to get her more sedated. Still unable to remove her from the carrier, we made the carrier into an anesthesia chamber by covering it with saran wrap and putting in the anesthetic hose. Within a few minutes Miss Clover had finally given in and was relaxed. We took her out and placed an anesthesia mask over her mouth and nose to keep her asleep while I examined her. I was amazed when I picked her up. She was much lighter than she appeared (only seventeen pounds) and her body shape was unlike any dog or cat I had ever seen.
I placed her on her back to examine her hairless belly and couldn’t believe how flat she was. Even her head was flat. Her jaws were wide and very powerful but from the top of her head to the bottom of her jaw was only about 2 inches. I have seen badgers going in and out of holes but hadn’t really thought about how efficient their body design was. They are very streamlined creatures. I literally folded her into multiple positions to see how she could maneuver in tight spots. It was truly amazing to see how small she could make herself when she needed to. In the process of studying her contortionism, I pushed on her bladder and she released some very bloody urine. I examined it under the microscope and found that she had a urinary tract infection and crystals in her urine. It was scalding her belly and she had been licking and pulling her hair out wherever it had come into contact with her skin. We gently washed her belly and used burn cream on the irritated skin and placed her on antibiotics to treat the infection. We took the mask off of Clover and she slowly woke up unaware of the badger acrobatics I had put her through while she was sleeping and she went back home with her beloved Jean to recover.”
And Miss Clover did recover. She is a young badger in spirit again. Alert. Lively. Guardian of the Small Animal Area. We look out the office window and watch her daily architectural changes. Mt. Vesuvius erupting as she digs down to China at incredible speed, dirt piling up behind her; an Alp appearing on the east side of her enclosure, crumbling and reappearing on the south side the next day … Miss Clover is back! Back to full badger mode, digging, charming, digging, hissing, digging, snarling, digging, giggling, loving Jean, and exploring with verve. She is back to her job of teaching people not to have preconceptions about badgers, and to question their assumptions about any animal they have not had the opportunity to meet under relaxed circumstances. She has struck so many blows for badger awareness … hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have learned to see her kind in a new light. They have gotten glimpses of what is possible in terms of humans’ relationship to wild creatures. At the very least they have a deeper appreciation of other beings inhabiting the earth with us. She is a warrior badger.
Badger | November 18, 2009
Watching Miss Clover ambulate always reminds me of a flounder. Flat. Barely skimming the ground. The fringes of her coat fluttering like the edges of the flounder as it scoots along the ocean floor. She doesn’t exactly cut a graceful figure as she waddles along on stubby legs under an impossibly wide body. Nevertheless there is a jauntiness and seriousness of purpose that gives her a certain dignity.
Badgers are a much maligned species, but as is so often the case, their reputation is based on limited knowledge and experience, and an ungenerous misunderstanding. The myth is perpetuated by people who have never met a badger (”Oh, they are MEAN”). We love the drama of it. But the truth is much more interesting and fun. It is true that they can be what we might call ferocious:
Scene: Little Miss Clover running as fast as she can after a 6-foot man who himself is running as fast as he can … the man leaping on top of the first available source of safety which happens to be an empty kennel box … the man on tip toes looking down in terror at the snarling, growling bundle of fur trying to attach itself to his leg.
But she had a reason. Despite warnings he had picked her up by the scruff of her neck when she was a young girl, like a dog, with no feeling or respect. You don’t pick up badgers by the scruff of the neck. It is an insult. They have a very delicate dignity and a very long memory. It is also a punishment — that is where they grab mice and other prey to shake and kill them for food. She simply never forgave him. Or any other tall skinny 6-foot male who comes along (there is a limit to their capacity for discrimination).
As for the badger’s reputation as the meanest thing on four legs barring a wolverine (that is what you always hear) — Miss Clover follows us on walks enjoying the companionship; stays very close for safety in places that are new, and comes running up to the edge of her enclosure to greet us, full of curiosity and enthusiasm. And I have stood in an arena with five full grown wolverines standing on their hind legs, forepaws on my thighs asking for treats. An Austrian naturalist Peter Krott used to rescue and raise wolverines. A large male guarded Peter’s newborn infant with tender care. True. He has photos to prove it. He stated he would find it hard to live without their charming vitality around him.
As is true of her kind, Miss Clover does have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. Badgers do not subscribe to discretion as being the better part of valor. If they feel the vibration of an animal passing by their den the unfortunate individual is liable to be surprised by a chattering growling package of rage, charging at astounding velocity. But if you were small in a very big and dangerous world, and were so near sighted you were almost blind, wouldn’t that be a good defense? If you can’t see too well and it might be dangerous, attack first and develop a fearsome reputation. It is true, they do have a bit of a hair trigger temper … as I mentioned, they have a very delicate dignity and must be treated with the utmost respect. But that is entirely reasonable, many of us are the same, and that is not all there is to them. If you can get past the defense, they can be charming, playful, affectionate and very funny. Miss Clover will frequently be seen lying flat on her back, balancing her water dish on four legs and throwing it up in the air as she chatters to herself. A sound that is very like a human giggle draws the viewer’s attention to this occurrence. On a hot day she will wet her belly in her water dish, then lie on her back and fan herself vigorously. Gradually the pace of her fanning slows to a few feeble little movements as she starts to fall asleep. And the intensity with which she pursues her main love in life, digging, her entire being focused, shows a great passion for life.
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