LIFE WITH A BADGER

He quickly became a celebrity, particularly amongst the children at our local primary school. We give weekly conservation classes to the Grade 6’s and 7’s and they knew all about Mr. Badger’s adventures, even though he was almost always fast asleep somewhere amongst the kopjes when the kids visited Stone Hills. At the farewell dinner for the Grade 7’s at the end of each year, each child receives a certificate with the words: Zimbiwe Ngulinda: Be like the Badger – be strong, be brave, be clever.
People would visit us just for the privilege of getting to know him. But they tended not to stay around for long thanks to Badge’s foot fetish, as it’s hard to get going with a furry 10kg lump wrapped tightly around your ankle. And of course Badge had his own agenda, when you lifted your foot to try and dislodge him, he would quietly slip his claws into your shoe and then whip it off and disappear at a gallop. As well as shoes, he loved hats, gloves, jackets, anything that belonged to someone else, who would be sure to make a satisfactory fuss when he stole it. The only way to retrieve such an item was to ignore him, but then he would try and trip you up with it, or run backwards in front of you, waving it up and down like some demented cheerleader, and challenging you to try and get it away. And these were the only occasions that you had to be a bit respectful of those formidable teeth.
Most of the time we spent laughing. One of Badge’s favourite tricks was to tiptoe up to the back of a warthog hole in the early morning, when they were still asleep. He’d go right to the edge, and push a little bit of soil into the entrance – then wait, and if nothing happened, he’d do it again. And again, till the poor hogs burst out of the hole convinced that something was about to eat them.
And then there were his hunting techniques – if he was after a rodent with a few escape holes at his burrow. Badge would lie down and put his muzzle at the main entrance, with his back feet dangling over the other holes. Then he would begin to wag his tail and wiggle his feet, to try and panic the unfortunate rodent into rushing out – straight into Badge’s mouth. Sometimes he got so excited that he would eat them whole.
Every day with Badge was an adventure.





Tomorrow Bad bad badger stories!