American Badgers: Top Chain Predators on the Valley Floor and Shoppers at the Prairie Dog Grocery Store

America Badgers (Taxidea taxus), a voracious member of the weasel family, have made themselves at home on the Valley Floor. They are finding plenty of food at the "grocery store" that the prairie dog colony has provided them. In this diary entry of Voices of the Valley Floor-a and Fauna listeners will learn intriguing facts about these evolutionary power houses and how their refined adaptations serve them beautifully to flush out prairie dogs (sometimes working in tandem with coyotes).

Note to reader: this show was recorded in 2015 and the prairie dog colony has since collapsed (2019). Since this collapse, the badger families food source has gone and with it the animals that depended upon them. 

Photo: American Badger (Taxidea taxus) on the valley floor with a Gunnison's Prairie Dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) in the background. Photo Cred: S Gaylord