FIRE EFFECTS AND USE
WILDLIFE SPECIES: Taxidea taxus | Badger 



DIRECT FIRE EFFECTS ON ANIMALS : 
Badgers are rarely threatened by fire even though they occur in
fire-prone plant communities.  There are no reports of direct mortality
by fire in the literature.  The badger spends most of the day (when
fires would burn hottest) underground; it digs rapidly and deeply when
threatened; and burrows tend to have more than one entrance,
facilitating air movement and reducing the chance of asphyxiation.


HABITAT RELATED FIRE EFFECTS : 
The most important effect of fire on badger habitat is its effect on
prey populations.  Badgers probably leave a burned area if rodent
populations decline; however, some rodents increase on fire-disturbed
areas, making it likely that badger activity would also increase in
those areas.  In a southwestern Idaho shadscale (Atriplex
confertifolia)-winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata) community, wildfire
reduced the abundance of small mammals in the first postfire year.  In
the same year, badger numbers were lower (by hole counts) on burned
sites than on adjacent unburned sites [11].  Also in southwestern Idaho,
desert shrublands were converted to annual grasslands due to wildfire.
The major prey of badgers in this area, Townsend's ground squirrels
(Spermophilus townsendii), experienced more widely fluctuating
populations on burned areas than on unburned areas.  It was concluded
that wildfire in this community destablized the prey base, and would
adversely affect badgers [33].  In Kansas tallgrass prairie there were
slightly fewer badgers on burned areas sampled in the first postfire
growing season than on unburned areas (three versus six badgers) [9].

Pocket gophers, which are a major prey item for badgers in western North
America, often increase on lands disturbed by fire (also road building,
logging, silvicultural site preparation, and other activities that open
tree canopies and/or disturb the soil) [29].  Early postfire succession
in California chaparral communities is often accompanied by large
populations of fossorial rodents such as California ground squirrel (S.
beecheyi) and kangaroo rats [10] and would thus attract badgers [25].


FIRE USE : 
NO-ENTRY


REFERENCES : 
NO-ENTRY

Related categories for Wildlife Species: Taxidea taxus | Badger