The majority of Ontario's badgers live on farms and the majority of southern Ontario is farmland, so farmers and their families are very important.

input from farmers

More land in southern Ontario is dedicated to agriculture than anything else, so if badgers are to survive in our province, considering farmers and their needs is crucial.  Too many conservation plans are built around patchy knowledge of a species and little input from the people who live there.  The result is often that a law comes down which may not address the requirements of the species and might actually be in conflict with what people need to make a living.  In the long run, everybody loses.  But if we can answer the basic questions about badger ecology in Ontario, and how they relate to local land use, a conservation plan can be formed that works for everyone. 

farms with badgers

In the search for examples of how badger conservation can work for farmers it is an advantage for a landowner to find a badger living on their property.  If a badger can live on your property, that may be all the more reason to CONTINUE doing what you are doing! In fact, the properties that have or have had badgers are far more important than the ones that don't.  Only these farms can provide real examples of the ways that agriculture and badgers can both do well.

Farms like this one that have badgers provide the best examples of how badgers and agriculture coexist.

The presence of a badger on a farm is not likely to be noticed, unless a burrow is found. Even then, most burrows are along borders and out of the way.

how much impact does a badger have?

Unless you actually find a burrow, chances are you will never know if there has been a badger on your land. They are most active at night and are quite good at not being seen. We followed a radio-transmitting badger for 3 months in 2009 across an area of nearly 6000 acres. Using radio-tracking, we found nearly 30 burrows that she'd used on the properties of 20 different landowners. None of those families had any previous knowledge that there had been a badger so close, and most had no idea that there were badgers in the area at all! The badger we were following was an old female, with two kits. She, and the badgers before her, had probably been in that area as long as any of those families has been. Not only does that show how hard it is to find a badger, but it shows just how little impact a badger actually has on a farm.

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Though they are rarely seen, badgers are native to Ontario.

Badgers eat small animals like mice, chipmunks, groundhogs, frogs, and insects.

General ecology

Badgers are a rare, native carnivore in the weasel family, about the size of a large raccoon. They are solitary (except when raising their young), mostly nocturnal, and very nomadic. They have very large territories for their size, and an adult badger's home range can easily be several thousand acres. They spend their nights hunting along the weedy and grassy edges of fields, forests, and meadows, and sleep in burrows during the day. They are constantly on the move, and they may have several dozen burrows in their home range, spending a few nights hunting in one area, then moving on. It may be a few days or even months before a badger returns to a specific location. They eat small animals like mice, groundhogs (also called woodchucks or gophers), chipmunks, frogs and insects. They don't really have the taste for garbage that raccoons and skunks do and tend to stay farther away from human areas. They are no danger to pets or livestock, and in fact, their consumption of small mammals can be a service in some areas.

BAdger Burrows

A typical badger burrow is wider than tall, with a large fan of excavated dirt at the entrance. They are usually along an edge or border. Coyote and fox dens are usually taller than they are wide, while groundhog burrows tend to be smaller and very round. However, there is variability in all burrows and these features can overlap between species.

• Wider than tall (about 1 foot or 30cm wide)
• Lots of excavated dirt when fresh
• Claw marks are often found on the inside walls
• Usually along an edge or border of some sort especially where there is a slope

Badgers do not have a central den like many other animals and may have several dozen burrows throughout their home range. They use these burrows for shelter during the day, and do most of their hunting at night. They may stay in one area for a few nights or a few weeks, and after a badger leaves it might be a week for a few months before it returns. In the 3 months that we followed a radio-transmitting badger near Simcoe, she used more than 30 burrows in an area of 6000 acres.

Badger burrows are usually wider than they are tall, often along a slope or edge, and with a lot of excavated dirt in front.

A badger's long front claws and "breast-stroke" method of digging can leave deep scratches on the inside walls

Badgers have many burrows over a very large area, so most people who actively farm in badger country have seen one of these burrows along the edge of a field at some point in their farming.

Finding badgers burrows

Despite the number of burrows a badger can have in its territory, actually finding burrows can be a challenge. First, because badgers are rare, mostly nocturnal, and have huge territories, and also because most of their activity is in places where people don't spend much time. Their favourite place for digging burrows are along the edges of fields and forests, where the grass and weeds have grown in. These areas are usually precisely the places that people don't use, and unless there are people working in the field, they aren't likely to be noticed. Even when people are in those areas, burrows can be easily missed if the crops are tall and the burrow isn't fresh.

a badger's role in the ecosystem

Despite their relatively small size, badgers are a top predator in southern Ontario, where larger animals are no longer found. Being at the top of the food web, they have an important role in managing populations of small animals and "weeding out" the sick, old and unhealthy members of the population. This service can be particularly helpful on farms, as badgers can help keep populations of rodents under control and slow the spread of diseases.

Badgers are quite good at controlling populations of many small animals, like groundhogs and mice

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The edges of fields are one of the most common places to find badger burrows

Old sand and gravel pits can be great spots for badgers

Even junk pits can often have a lot of the weedy habitat that badgers like

How can farms create habitat?

Badgers like open habitat, and while they will move through forests, they don't prefer them. Because of this, much of the habitat that badgers like is in some way disturbed. On grasslands and prairie, this disturbance was traditionally created by fire and large grazing animals. Here in Ontario humans are the biggest creators of landscape disturbance. Most of this activity doesn't provide much for badgers to use, but it turns out that many farms actually have a lot of "accidental" badger habitat on them. Most of these are areas that are usually left alone for most of the year, but are occasionally cut back or cleared, resulting in a grassy and weedy habitat.

Along the edges of fields and forests, conditions are often perfect for the habitat badgers like. There is enough disturbance from human activity to prevent trees and forest from taking over, but the disturbance is also low enough to allow grasses and weeds to grow and go to seed. Other than the edges of fields, hedgerows and fence rows, there are many other places on farms that provide areas for badgers to hunt as they move through. Abandoned or fallow fields can have large areas of excellent habitat for even several years before they are converted to another use or colonized by trees. Old gravel pits and sand pits not only have lots of prey in the area, but their sandy slopes are favourite spots for badgers to burrow. Orchards and pastures are also areas that often abound with mice and other small rodents.

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The challenge of maintaining habitat

Throughout a badger's territory, which can be several thousand acres, all of these small areas can combine to create a sufficient source of food and shelter. The badger's nomadic nature can probably serve it well in southern Ontario. Because a badger is always on the move, it is able to make use of these areas, even though the actual amount on any one farm might be very limited. But this balance is a very delicate one. The same process that creates these areas is also the one that can destroy them. While this is all a natural part of the process, it could spell disaster for badgers if too many of these areas are lost or converted in a short period of time and are not replaced elsewhere.

But it may not be so hard to ensure that enough badger habitat remains. Though they may not be particularly desired by farmers, these unused and fallow areas are certainly not detrimental, since they have been part of every farm since agriculture began. And in general, most farmers are actually quite concerned with the animals that live on their lands. The challenge is to understand the rotating nature of these areas and how badgers use them so that farmers themselves can make choices that benefit badgers, but don't have any negative impact on their own farms.

Small grassy areas like this are common on many farms, and badgers will use many of these small areas throughout their territories

These areas come and go continually on farmlands, but if too many are lost at once and are not replaced by enough, a badger might not have enough to survive

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It is important to note that the legal use of term "habitat" is different from our more general definition in this webpage. When we talk about habitat here, we are describing the types of areas that badgers like to hunt and live in. The legal definition is much more narrow and refers to a very specific location (5 meters) and for a limited time (12 months).

For more information on the habitat regulations and what they might mean for a farmer, contact Ron Gould (MNR Species at Risk Biologist in Aylmer; ron.gould@ontario.ca, 519-773-4735)

Habitat regulations

The Endangered Species Act 2007 made some changes to the protection of endangered species, like the American Badger, notably the inclusion of critical habitat to be protected. As part of this, a set of habitat regulations were drafted (enacted Feb. 18, 2010) that defined protected areas in Ontario.

Though the actual implications of the regulations are quite vague, it is very important to keep in mind that the habitat regulations are intended to protect badgers and not to impose difficulties for farmers. The fact that a badger can be found in a certain area is usually a testament that that activity causes no harm. Common sense and a general awareness are usually enough to ensure that badgers are not harmed. Local MNR staff are very committed to working with farmers and are very aware of how important the agricultural community is to the future of badgers in Ontario.

Supporting Research

The habitat regulations are well-intended and are a good starting point. However there are some limitations in that they don't include any new information about badgers in Ontario and they don't really take into consideration how agricultural practices relate to badgers, as the research has only just begun and data is not yet available. So obviously these regulations and the way they are implemented will shift as more knowledge about badgers comes to light, and we begin to understand the relationship between badgers and farming.

Our job as researchers is to find these answers so that decisions can be made with information that reflects the actual situation. Only then can the needs and requirements of both badgers and farmers be taken into consideration. This is why the participation of farmers is so important. If farmers are not involved in this process, there will be no way to ensure that we can actually answer these questions.

Trapping and following a radio-transmitting badger was a great way to discover how badgers can use farms

Only by continuing badger research can we discover the real relationship between badgers and farming

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There's every reason to believe that with more research on badgers and input from farmers we can ensure that badgers don't disappear from farmlands in Ontario

The future of badgers and farming

Some animals are endangered because they require undisturbed areas that are in obvious short supply these days. But badgers are an animal that actually can live alongside agriculture, and in fact the disturbance caused by farming can help to create habitat. This might be the best thing that badgers have going for them. Badgers have the very real possibility of becoming known as a flagship species of Ontario agriculture, a true success story of how such an animal can coexist with farming. But we still have a long way to go in understanding badger ecology enough for this to happen. Endangered species protection is a good starting point, but only that. The ultimate goal is always to work toward a stable and healthy population that needs no help from the government to survive. In the end, the future coexistence of badgers and agriculture will depend much more on the awareness and concern of farmers, than on rules and regulations from the government.

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