Identification | Biology | Damage ID | Management | Handling

Overview of Damage Prevention and Control Methods

Habitat Modification

• Controlling rodent populations may make habitats less suitable for badgers.

Exclusion

• Generally not practical.

Frightening

• Bright lights.

Repellents

• None are registered

Toxicants

• None are registered

Shooting

• Where permitted, shooting with a rifle, handgun, or shotgun is effective.
  

Trapping

• Steel leg hold traps.
• Live traps.
  

Damage Prevention and Control Methods

Habitat Modification

Control of rodents, particularly burrowing rodents, offers the greatest potential for alleviating problems resulting from badger diggings. For example, controlling ground squirrels or pocket gophers in alfalfa fields will likely result in badgers hunting elsewhere.

Exclusion

Mesh fencing buried to a depth of 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 cm) can exclude most badgers. The cost and effort to construct such fences, however, preclude their use for large areas.

Frightening

Badgers may be discouraged from a problem area by the use of bright lights at night. High-intensity lamps used to light up a farmyard may discourage badger predation on poultry.

Shooting

Badgers can be controlled by shooting. Spotlighting, if legal, can be effective. Incidental shooting has contributed to reducing their numbers in some areas.

Trapping

Badgers can be removed by using live traps and/or leghold traps set like those for coyotes (see Coyotes). Snares have been used with mixed success. Badgers often return to old diggings. A good bait for badgers is a dead chicken placed within a recently dug burrow. Fur trapping may reduce badger populations locally, but badger pelts are generally of little value and
most badgers are caught incidentally.

Leghold traps (No. 3 or 4) are adequate to hold a badger. Rather than staking the trap to the ground, it is better to attach it to a drag such as a strong limb or similar object that the badger cannot pull down into its burrow. Badgers will often dig in a circle around a stake, sometimes enough to loosen the stake and drag the trap away.