Ethan Frehner of the University of Utah and colleagues left seven calf carcasses in the area with camera traps to see what animals would visit. They were hoping to learn more about vultures and other avian scavengers.
The photos revealed otherwise. An American badger had buried the entire carcass over the course of five days. Afterwards, it spent two weeks in its underground burrow without leaving, and kept returning to the burrow for several more weeks. Frehner thinks the badger was getting most of its sustenance from the cow for over 50 days.
American badgers are known to cache small items like rodents and rabbits, but they have never before been seen burying an animal bigger than itself.
“We know a lot about badgers morphologically and genetically, but behaviorally there’s a lot of blank spaces that need to be filled,” says Frehner. He adds that the behaviour could be good for cattle ranchers. “It’s not beneficial to have rotting carcasses out among your other cattle because of disease vectors.”
The study was published in Western North American Naturalist.
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