In various places in Drenthe, disturbed areas appear in lawns, meadows and other soils during this period. This happens, among other things, in gardens just outside Hooghalen. Wildlife cameras captured the culprits: badgers.
“I have known for a long time that there are badgers here,” says Philip Wildevuur, gallery owner on an estate in Hooghalen. “But I’ve never experienced this before.”
His terrain was also heavily plowed in several places by the badger. “A consequence of the drought,” explains Pauline Arends. She is a forester in Hooghalen and a member of the Badger Working Group Drenthe.
“Badgers are now indeed busy looking for food. But the fact that they are plowing up so many lawns and meadows has to do with the dry spring. Normally they mainly look for creatures in the forest, such as earthworms and woodlice. But it is now such a dry spring that the earthworms are crawling too deep into the ground,” says Arends.
As a result, the badgers move out. “Ideal are lawns, preferably with a lot of moss, because there it remains a little more moist. An ideal place for leatherjackets, which are the larvae of the crane fly and for the larvae of cockchafers. These are tasty protein-rich snacks for the badger.” And with a bit of luck for the badger, the lawns will also be watered, meaning food is plentiful.
Philip Wildevuur is ‘the victim’ of this. “But I don’t mind it that much. Those badgers need their proteins, so I let them do their thing. And it is a nice natural control of the leatherjackets, otherwise I would have had to do something about it in a different way. Only the holes they make are not small, it has been really dug open. It will probably be good for the aeration of the lawn, I hope,” says Wildevuur.
Forest ranger Arends also tries to give the same positive spin. “The advantage for the lawn owner is that you can get rid of your leatherjackets, because they are disastrous for your lawn. But the disadvantage is that everything has to be plowed up a lot.” However, there is also a negative side to the story for the badger.
According to Arends, the badger in Drenthe is doing quite well. “But the drought is now a real danger. We now see that many badgers are being killed. Precisely because the animals go out a lot to find food. Especially the females that now have young, they need the proteins for their milk production. There are now several reports of badgers being killed by roadkill every week.”
