YELLOWSTONE'S WILD WORLD

Day 8 – The Fight

(If you didn’t see yesterday’s post this is a continuation of a story about the Yellowstone Picnic Area foxes. Read the previous 7 posts to catch up.)

In the middle of the afternoon on the 8th day the unthinkable happened. Dad was out hunting and the kits were in the den when a badger appeared from out of nowhere. Mom was home and immediately went after the badger. But the badger was really determined. It was if he already knew the kits were in the den and that was where he was going. Mom put up a great fight. She went after him with no hesitation. Often when she lunged at the badger with her teeth bared the badger would duck his head down and she bit him on the forehead. After a little while we could see blood on his head. Even though she fought hard the badger made it into the foxes den. We held our breath. The den had a main entrance hole and two other holes. We hoped the babies would make it out one of the other holes. But for 15 minutes nothing happened. We just knew the badger was down there killing the babies. But after the longest 15 minutes of my life the babies popped out as if nothing was wrong. We were elated!! We don’t know for sure what the badger was doing all that time in their den but the babies were fine. The only thing we can figure is that Dad was a very good provider and that the badger was down there eating their cache of ground squirrels.

Even though the babies were in great shape Mom still had a problem: She had a badger in her den. She repeatedly went down the main den hole but could not dislodge him. She seemed really frustrated. We waited for hours and nothing really happened. The badger did come out once and there was another short fight but then he went back in as if the den was now his. As it grew dark we knew we had to leave, but we would be back the next morning to see what happened over night. Until tomorrow. . . . . . . Good Night.