Are there badgers in kansas

Toggle navigation. Photo by Trey Towers. An adult American Badger. Description: The American Badger is a large member of the weasel family. It has a broad body, muscular neck, short, powerful legs, broad feet with 5 clawed digits, and a bushy tail. Its small ears are rounded and upright. The tail is only slightly longer than the hind feet.

The forefeet are markedly larger than the hind feet. There is a white patch on each cheek, a circle of white on the anterior surface of each year, and a white stripe extending posteriorly from the nose between the eyes to the shoulders or beyond. In other areas, hairs are clay-colored basally and have a black or brown median band and gray tips.

This gives the pelage a grizzled, multicolored appearance. The pelage is longer on the sides than on the back, which accentuates the badger's broad appearance. The venter is paler than the dorsum or even orangish in certain individuals. The feet are black or brown. Adults may attain the following dimensions: total length mm; length of tail mm; length of hind foot mm; length of ear mm; weight 4.

No other species in Kansas can be confused with the American badger. Distribution: The overall distribution of this American species presently includes southwestern Canada, the western two-thirds of the United States, and the northern two-thirds of Mexico. This distribution includes all of Kansas, but it is doubtful that the species occurred east of the Flint Hills before European settlers arrived in Kansas. Specimen records suggest that the species expanded its distribution into northeastern Kansas east of Riley County sometime after Badgers are most common in grassland or forest edge habitats with deep, friable soil that compacts well.

Fossil remains of badgers have been found in late Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in western North America. Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above. Frightening Bright lights. Repellents None are registered. Toxicants None are registered. Fumigants None are registered. Hygnstrom, Robert M. Timm, and Gary E. Kansas Badger Identification American Badgers have a triangular face with a distinctive black and white pattern and a stocky body covered with shaggy grizzled fur.

Range and Habitat The badger is widely distributed in the contiguous United States. Fun Facts Badgers are members of the weasel family and have the musky odor characteristic of this family. Damage Identification Most damage caused by badgers results from their digging in pursuit of prey.

Legal Status In some states, badgers are classified as furbearers and protected by regulated trapping seasons, while in other states they receive no legal protection. Trapping Steel leghold traps. They are scarce in heavily wooded areas of the state, especially in the southeast, and are probably most abundant in central Kansas where the combination of prey and open land are most suitable. The badger is the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family in Kansas, often weighing 15 to 20 pounds.

It has a broad and flattened body and short, powerful legs. Its large forefeet are webbed and equipped with long, curved claws. Pelage coloration includes distinct black and white facial markings and a grizzled gray body with black legs and feet. The badger is physically well equipped for a lifestyle that revolves around digging and is the most fossorial of Kansas furbearers. Badger dens or burrows are conspicuous, consisting of a large mound of dirt piled around a to inch- diameter hole.

Most excavations are in pursuit of prey, but natal dens are specifically constructed. The young are usually born in April or May after a winter arrest in embryonic development known as delayed implantation. From one to five young are born, with three or four being average. Solitary except during July and August when mating occurs, even badgers with overlapping home ranges tend to avoid each other through scent marking and aggression.

Badgers may range over several square miles, but significantly limit their movements during the winter months.