American badger (Taxidea taxus)

A badger family relaxes at their burrow.

NPS / Peelee Clark

At Wind Cave, badgers may be found in and around prairie dog towns. Their typical habitat is grassland, so the mixed grass prairie provides a sandier loam soil for them to dig their burrows in and hunt prey. Badgers are primarily nocturnal but when they settle in more rural areas with less human interaction, it's fairly common to witness them wandering about throughout the daytime. They're also not known to hibernate, but instead will enter a state of torpor (reducing their metabolic rate) and sleep for roughly 29 hours before waking to hunt and emerge from their burrows.

Typically badgers are solitary creatures that will expand their territory and cover more acerage when it comes to mating season. This falls anywhere from late summer to early fall, and male badgers will even take multiple partners. After mating, females will use delayed implantation to stall the pregnancy, not truly becoming pregnant with young until Winter is in full swing. Once their short gestation period of six to eight weeks is up, a mother will have about three offspring, but can have anywhere from one to five cubs.

 

Badger and two coyotes hunting in tandem on the prairie.

NPS Photo

These carnivorous mammals are aerodynamically designed to live in and dig burrows. Their wide flat bodies, short legs, and extremely long claws aid them to dig fater than the prey they're consuming. It's said a digging badger could even outpace a person digging with a shovel.

One behavior observed in badgers is their penchant for hunting in a duo with coyotes. By working together, the coyote can run off after prey and the badger can sneak underground to catch prairie dogs. Together they have much more sucessful hunting rates.

 

They're also known for their fierceness and ability to hold their ground with even the most dangerous adversary. Rattlesnakes are often no match for their fighting skills and are a common food source. Apart from rattlesnakes, they commonly eat prairie dogs, groundhogs, insects, mice, and ground-dwelling birds. Once they're finished eating, they'll cache the remaining food source in a burrow.