American Badger: Patient Number 385 of 2025​

 

​ 

In the spring of 2025, Calgary Wildlife received a young American Badger (Taxidea taxus) discovered in a ditch near Vulcan, Alberta. Tragically, the badger’s mother was found deceased nearby—likely struck by a vehicle. With its mother gone, the orphaned youngster faced a daunting future, vulnerable to predation and unable to learn vital survival behaviours on its own. The badger was transported to Calgary Wildlife’s hospital, where its rescue marked more than just a single life saved — it represented the rehabilitation of a keystone species for Alberta’s grassland ecosystem.

​

Over three months, our dedicated veterinary and rehabilitation team provided species-specific care designed to preserve natural instincts: a diet that mimics what it would eat in the wild, minimal human contact to avoid habituation, and enrichment that encouraged digging and burrowing behaviours. These are essential survival skills for a badger returning to the prairie. As a keystone species, badgers help regulate populations of ground squirrels and other burrowing mammals, aerate soils, promote native plant growth, and even create burrows later used by owls, snakes, and foxes. In August 2025, once our team confirmed the badger was fit and instinctively driven to dig and forage, it was released back into wild grassland habitat. The success of this rehabilitation is not just about one animal — it’s a boost to biodiversity and ecosystem health across Alberta’s prairie lands.

​

​

Check out its release video here

​​​​​

​