{"id":77102,"date":"2017-08-07T09:07:47","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T16:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=77102"},"modified":"2017-08-07T09:07:47","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T16:07:47","slug":"when-badgers-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=77102","title":{"rendered":"When Badgers Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The past\u00a0couple weeks have been filled with plenty of field days, inspections, and the inevitable trecks to unmarked sites. Always interesting, always an adventure, just sometimes that adventure is searching around in 100F for a site that in theory should no longer exist. The irony is palpable.<\/p>\n

Last week, my fellow intern, Jess, and I took a break from our regular fieldwork\u00a0to go look at the recovery of some former spill sites with Andy, the assigned NRS. We lucked out with the one mid-70s day that week, and the primary site was in a beautiful area of the field office. The site was almost completely recovered, and aside from a few small sections still catching up, you wouldn’t have known how large of an area had been affected, or how much bioremdiation and reclamation had been done. After inspecting\u00a0the entire area we headed out to the next\u00a0site, and on our way we encountered some road blocks.<\/p>\n

Locked gates and dead end roads are always a possibility out here, and something I’m sure many, if not all, interns have experienced. We ran into a few on the way, though fortunately\u00a0nothing that significantly impacted our route.\u00a0Cows and sheep in the road\u00a0are also a regular occurrence, so a stubborn old bull was par for the course. He certainly took his time, but\u00a0we managed to make it through. However, as we made a turn further down the road and crested a hill, we came across perhaps the most interesting, and some might say\u00a0formidable, obstacle yet: a mating pair of badgers.<\/p>\n

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Male badger as he crosses in front of our truck<\/p><\/div>\n

Squarely in the middle of the road, and not at all pleased by our interruption, they immediately went on the offensive.\u00a0The female took\u00a0the lead – perhaps her young had just dispersed (or were in the process of doing so) and she still felt the need to protect and distract, or maybe she was just bothered by how rudely we intruded on their privacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Whatever the reason, she became vocal immediately, with what I can only describe as\u00a0an\u00a0intense combination of growling and hissing, and began to charge our truck. The male seemed satisfied that she could handle us, making\u00a0a couple passes across the road before heading into the neighboring tall grass with some parting snorts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Growling and hissing, the female turns for another charge<\/p><\/div>\n

The female continued her attack with a persistence that was as impressive as it was intimidating, and as amusing as it was endearing. I loved her for it. After charging our front tires relentlessly, and pacing a few times parallel to the truck, she began lunging near the tailgate; each time running a little further down the road and looking back, maybe to see if we would follow. Eventually\u00a0she was either satisfied\u00a0our truck was no longer a threat,\u00a0or that she’d successfully made her point, and she looped around and met up with the male who was still lingering on the edge of the road. They dropped below the ridge, and after getting out, I was able to watch them go into a burrow (or cete) about 10-15 yards down.<\/p>\n

And so, 20 minutes after this had all begun, we headed to our next site.<\/p>\n

– Christine<\/p>\n

Buffalo, WY Field Office<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Retreating\u00a0before another change at our tires<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The female loops around our truck as she heads back towards the male<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past\u00a0couple weeks have been filled with plenty of field days, inspections, and the inevitable trecks to unmarked sites. Always interesting, always an adventure, just sometimes that adventure is searching around in 100F for a site that in theory should … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77102"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77188,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77102\/revisions\/77188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}