Once was the badger (Meles meles) has almost disappeared from our country. There were still a few stray specimens living near Nijmegen and on the Einde Gooi estate south of Hilversum, but that was regarding it. The Association Das & Boom (nowadays a foundation) took care of the species, which resulted in a protection plan and reintroductions.
The success of this, which is comparable to the success of the reintroductions of beavers and otters, has led to several thousand badgers occurring in our country, even in Friesland. However, you rarely see them, because the animals are active at dusk; so you have to get out of bed at night and in the morning to be able to observe them. During the day they stay in their underground cave system, the badger sett.
Badgers are the largest mustelids living in our country and are therefore related to martens, otters, minks, weasels and ermines. They are predators but they have adapted to an omnivorous diet. They mainly eat earthworms, but also eat a variety of things: nuts, acorns, mushrooms, snails, mice, rodents, beetle larvae, eggs. Their cusp teeth resemble those of other omnivores such as bears and pigs.
Love-hate relationship with man
There has always been a love-hate relationship between badger and human. Badgers were (and unfortunately still are) hunted and exterminated. There may be several reasons for this. In England, badgers are suspected of spreading bovine tuberculosis, and although cattle farmers mainly spread the disease themselves with their cattle transports, it is reason to combat badgers fanatically.
Another reason is that badger hair is the most suitable material for making shaving brushes. In French, the words for badger and for shaving brush are the same: badger; it better be clear. A real badger hair shaving brush quickly costs between 50 and 300 euros. But even apart from cattle diseases and shaving equipment, the tie has a hard time.
The badger’s worst enemy is probably the automobile. Badgers are slow walkers, they scurry slowly through their habitat, with the result that an estimated one-fifth of all animals are killed in traffic every year. Badger tunnels are being constructed here and there, but unfortunately road casualties are not a rarity.
Train traffic shut down
And then many people are disturbed by their digging lust. As long as they build their castle somewhere in the middle of the forest, that’s it, but badgers don’t think that strategically. A badger family near the Frisian Molkwerum halted train traffic between Workum and Stavoren this week. The animals have built their burrow under the railway track and the size of the cave system is so large that Prorail fears a subsidence of the track.
As I type these lines, the website of the railways states that no trains will run until at least Monday, March 20, due to ‘defective track’. It will not be easy to entice the badgers to leave; they are legally protected and, moreover, youngsters are present in the castle around this time. The Frisian train congestion is an additional disadvantage of the enormous success of badger protection.
Jelle Reumer is a paleontologist. Every week he discusses an animal that makes the news for Trouw.
