Washington’s occurrence record for the American badger belongs almost entirely to the state’s dry side. Of 119 records, the heaviest concentrations sit east of the Cascades, from Whitman and Adams counties in the Palouse country north through Okanogan and south to Walla Walla, a map of shrub-steppe and open grassland rather than the wet coastal forest most people picture.
A digger that needs open ground
A badger’s front half is a digging machine, with broad shoulders, powerful forelimbs, and long claws for excavating ground squirrels, pocket gophers, and mice straight out of their burrows. That diet ties it to open country with deep, workable soils, which is exactly what Washington’s record shows. Hanford Reach National Monument and the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area anchor the sageland core, while Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge and the Wenas and L.T. Murray wildlife areas hold records along the shrub-steppe’s northern and western edges.
Quiet months, not a winter disappearance
Badgers do not truly hibernate, but in cold weather they den up for days at a stretch and let their body temperature sag, so a midwinter badger is rarely abroad. Washington’s counts thin to almost nothing from November through February, then climb to their strongest in May and June, when the soil is easy to work and fresh diggings give the animal away even where it is not seen.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the American badger S4, Apparently Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
