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At first, Evan Buechley, a doctoral student at the University of Utah, was disappointed. He’d spent a lot of time and effort dragging a cow carcass to a wild area in the northwest part of the state and then staking it down to study what scavengers might come to eat it, and how. But it appeared that some creatures, perhaps a band of coyotes, had managed to drag it away.
But his chagrin turned to elation upon downloading photos from the motion-triggered camera next to the kill: The pictures revealed a badger completely burying the cow, something that has never been witnessed before. Another of the seven carcasses he left out in the wilderness had almost been buried by another badger in under two days.
Prior to this finding, detailed in a study published Friday in the Western North American Naturalist, badgers were known to “cache,” or bury, only small creatures like rodents and, on the large end, jackrabbits. But badgers had never been witnessed burying anything bigger than themselves, let alone a calf carcass that weighs 50 pounds and was four times their size.
As Buechley, first author Ethan Frehner, a senior at the University of Utah, and other authors explain, the two beef-seeking badgers excavated large holes underneath the cows that then collapsed, allowing the animals to make their bovine quarry “disappear.” The two creatures then spent up to 11 days in their new underground abode, feasting on dead meat and sleeping.
Read more here. (Newsweek)
But his chagrin turned to elation upon downloading photos from the motion-triggered camera next to the kill: The pictures revealed a badger completely burying the cow, something that has never been witnessed before. Another of the seven carcasses he left out in the wilderness had almost been buried by another badger in under two days.
Prior to this finding, detailed in a study published Friday in the Western North American Naturalist, badgers were known to “cache,” or bury, only small creatures like rodents and, on the large end, jackrabbits. But badgers had never been witnessed burying anything bigger than themselves, let alone a calf carcass that weighs 50 pounds and was four times their size.
As Buechley, first author Ethan Frehner, a senior at the University of Utah, and other authors explain, the two beef-seeking badgers excavated large holes underneath the cows that then collapsed, allowing the animals to make their bovine quarry “disappear.” The two creatures then spent up to 11 days in their new underground abode, feasting on dead meat and sleeping.
Read more here. (Newsweek)
