Nicholas Donaldson
Josh Sayers, the biologist who has been studying badgers in this area since early spring, gave a preliminary report of his findings at a meeting of the Rainy River District Stewardship last Thursday evening.
During the meeting, held at the MNRF fire headquarters here, Sayers told the group it’s too early to tell the status of badgers here, but he can say for sure that they are here.
“In fact, I did find a lot more evidence than I expected,” he admitted.
Sayers explained the area has a lot to offer badgers for habitat because of the mix of forests and hay fields, and that “there does seem to be a stable, albeit small, breeding population here.”
Sayers said he found roughly 70 sites in the area that physically were consistent with badger burrows.
Most of these were found by driving around the area and looking for signs of digging.
“Occasionally, I’ll spot a place that looks like a place a badger would go through and I’ll check it out,” Sayers noted.
He said most of the burrows he found were of a similar type-those that are visible from the road.
“But when we put transmitters on them down south, they show up all over the place,” he remarked.
Sayers also set up hair snags at the entrance of 56 of the most promising burrows.
“So far I’ve collected 60 hair samples, and at least half of these are confirmed or suspected badger,” he reported.
Sayers said the long guard hairs on the sides of a badger can be identified by sight, but other hairs need to be tested genetically.
The samples will be analyzed over the next several months to see if they are from a badger and, if so, to determine how many different badgers were collected from.
Trail cameras were set up at up to 16 burrows at a time, but Sayers noted it is hard to count different badgers that way because they don’t differ that much physically except for their stripes.
He showed the group pictures from the trail cameras and noted differences like a jagged stripe on one, a thicker stripe, or a broken stripe.
But these needed multiple pictures to make sure it was not just the way the badger was sitting.
Sayers got pictures on 16 occasions at eight different sites with at least five individual badgers represented in the photos, but it could be more.
“The genetic analysis is ongoing but based on the burrows and the digging, I would guess there are maybe 10 individuals,” Sayers offered as the minimum number of badgers detected during his stay here.
“There could be less but there very well could be a handful more than that, as well,” he noted.
The activity Sayers found stretched from Fort Frances to Rainy River, but mostly was focused along the southern parts of the district.
Unfortunately, despite the number of burrows he found, Sayers wasn’t able to trap any badgers and implant the two radio transmitters he had with him.
He explained that because of the animals nomadic nature, it is hard to guess where they may be. As such, he has to just guess where to set the traps based on recent activity.
“You need to be really lucky that another one will show up, even in breeding season when they are following each other around,” Sayers explained.
“I had only around 15 trap nights and didn’t catch anything-but I didn’t catch a skunk, either,” he laughed.
Truck problems also hampered Sayers, which frustrates him especially now as he looks back on the summer and is sure he could have got those transmitters out.
The transmitters are important because instead of looking for the animal and trying to find out where they are, they can follow where it is going and better understand what it is doing.
Sayers said since he sent out information to area residents at the beginning of his study, he received a handful of reports. But he acknowledged the general lack of sightings means they obviously are not a common animal here.
Adding to this is the fact that badgers tend to be very secretive, mostly nocturnal, and not easily recognizable unless you see their distinct black-and-white face.
“For a lot of wildlife sightings, what you do see is the back end as it dashes off into the bush,” Sayers explained.
“In fact, you might just think it was the largest groundhog you’ve ever seen.”
This summer, Sayers received only the third submitted picture of a badger since they began doing the study back in 2009.
“These sightings happen so fast that even with smartphone cameras, people aren’t able to get them out in time and get a picture,” he lamented.
Looking ahead, Sayers said whether he’ll return to the area to continue the study next year depends on funding and personal matters.
But considering the evidence he collected, and the strong possibility of being able to tag area badgers in the future, he was fairly certain he would be able to secure the funding.
In the meantime, Sayers stressed the importance of reporting sightings either of badgers (alive or dead, past or present) or potential burrows.
To report a sighting, e-mail info@ontariobadgers.org or call the badger hotline at 1-877-715-9299.
More information also can be found at www.ontariobadgers.org, which Sayers hopes to update with information specific to Northwestern Ontario in the next few months.
