Translocation as a Promising Tool to Aid Recovery of Badger Populations

Abstract: The subspecies of American badger1 that occurs in British Columbia (Taxidea taxus jeffersonii) is on the provincial Red List, and is listed federally by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as Endangered. Within the East Kootenay Trench, the badger population in the Kootenay River valley appears to be stable to possibly increasing slightly, but that of the upper Columbia River valley has approached extirpation. It is not clear whether trends in the upper Columbia are a product of a long-term loss in the area’s ability to support badgers, suggesting that recovery would be unlikely, or simply the result of random events in a low-density population, indicating that recovery is possible under appropriate conditions. As a means of fast-tracking population recovery while testing the area’s ability to support a recovering population, we translocated badgers into the upper Columbia valley. During the summers of 2002 and 2003, we radiotagged and translocated 15 badgers from the Kalispell, Montana area that were of the same subspecies and were genetically similar to those in the East Kootenay. These included seven adult males, four adult females, two juvenile males, and two juvenile females. As of December 2003, at least three of the seven badgers released in 2002 were alive, one had died of unknown causes, and three could no longer be radiolocated. One of the liv