Baby badger a real heartbreaker

Ozaukee County is currently home to a small, cuddly looking version of Bucky Badger.

But unlike the University of Wisconsin-Madison mascot, this badger isn’t a caricature — he’s a month-old kit, complete with the distinctive white stripes on his head, that’s being cared for by Jean Lord, executive director of Pine View Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center.

Even Lord, who has a pragmatic view of wildlife and the ability to detach herself from the emotions many feel when looking at baby animals, was taken by the kit.

“It’s hard not to say that,” she said when someone described the baby badger as adorable. “It’s amazing.”

The badger was found alongside a gravel driveway in Dane County during a stormy period earlier this month, Lord said. Through the efforts of the Dane County  Humane Society, Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin WildCare, the baby was transferred to Pine View — one of the few wildlife rehab centers in the state certified to handle badgers.

The kit was dehydrated, a little emaciated and chilled, Lord said, but otherwise in good health.

Lord has been feeding the kit every three to four hours, and she said he’s been doing well, gaining weight — he’s gone from about 250 grams to 260 grams — and developing normally.

Adult badgers typically weigh 12 to 16 pounds and are 23 to 35 inches long.

Badger mothers wean their young until they’re about 8 weeks old, Lord said. After this kit is weaned, it will be fed a special diet for the next six weeks.

She estimated the kit is about 4-1/2 weeks old, since he’s just beginning to open his eyes, is teething and beginning to growl.

“It can be frightening,” Lord said of the growl, particularly the growl of an adult badger, which uses it to fend off other animals. “It’s loud and aggressive.”

Badgers are seldom seen by humans. They’re nocturnal animals that stay in their dens throughout the day and shy away from people.

They burrow down about six feet, Lord said, adding their dens can branch out 30 feet in various directions.

They are carnivores that use their long claws to dig up and eat burrowing mammals and in particular rodents, and they have few natural predators, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

According to the DNR, badgers usually give birth to between one and five kits that remain in their mother’s care until fall.

Lord said she doesn’t know why this kit was separated from its mother, although she didn’t rule out the possibility its burrow had flooded.

Badgers are a protected species in Wisconsin, and their numbers have fallen in the state.

Lord noted that Pine View has cared for about six badgers over the years, the last one found about five years ago in a farm field near the border of Random Lake and Little Kohler.

Badgers, who are members of the weasel family, were once hunted for their fur, Lord said, adding that their fierce nature may have led people to fear them.

“They were misconstrued, misunderstood,” she said. “Badgers are here for a reason. They balance nature.”
Lord said that Pine View staff members will monitor the kit’s progress as it is weaned to ensure it retains its natural instincts, with the goal of returning it to nature.

Whether that’s in Ozaukee County or elsewhere remains to be seen, she said. When young badgers leave their mothers, they sometimes move long distances to establish their own dens.   

Pine View staff members are looking for areas conducive to badgers for its release, places with a diversity of food and sandy soil where it can easily dig a den.

There are two local landowners who have expressed an interest in having the badger released on their land, Lord said.

“We have options,” she said.