Wyoming’s Urban Badgers Follow Prairie Dogs Into Towns

Wyomingites are used to wild animals of all sorts wandering into their towns, and are generally tolerant of it. But when badgers start showing up on the streets, most folks draw the line.

“People don’t like them, which is understandable, because badgers have that reputation for being mean,” critter catcher Jerry Lewis of Casper told Cowboy State Daily.

“People just get nervous about badgers. It’s kind of like with bats, people get really nervous about bats, too,” added Lewis, who owns RKR Nuisance Wildlife Control.

But after catching a couple of these furry tanks in Casper, Lewis said he thinks badgers don’t really deserve their bad reputation.

“In my opinion, a badger is as mean as you make it. A badger would just as soon run as be messed with,” he said.

Just don’t corner one, Lewis warned.

“Once they’re cornered, they’ll lay flat, and they’re just nothing but teeth and claws after that,” he said.

Rawlins Rocking With Badgers

Rawlins has had some urban badgers hanging out around town for several years now.

On social media chatter boards, residents will occasionally post news of sightings, along with warnings for people to watch out for their dogs, cats and kids — in case of badger aggression.

Even so, resident Alana Engel said she doesn’t mind the badgers, which are big, burrowing members of the weasel family.

Engel said she’s aware of at least a couple of badgers that have taken up residence in a subdivision near the edge of town.

As far as she’s concerned, the badgers are doing a public service by trimming down the prairie dog population.

“It’s in an area right where you’d expect to see a badger,” she said. “I walk my dog up there, and I’ve seen badgers up there once in a while.”

While others seem worried about the badgers, Engel said she and her dog have never had a run-in with them, only encountering them at a distance.

“There’s not any drama. If you leave them alone, they leave you alone,” she said. “There’s lots of prairie dogs for them to eat, so they’re getting enough food, they’re getting enough water.”

Caught Snoozing

Lewis said one badger he caught in Casper “was really mellow.”

Some residents called him after they found a badger fast asleep in a tiny passageway between a shed and a fence.

It was an easy job, Lewis said. He just set a trap at one end, poked the badger with a pole to wake it up, and “he ran right into the trap, because he had nowhere else to go.”

Lewis doesn’t kill the animals he traps. He has a “catch-and-release” policy.

So he took the badger a long way out of Casper to the edge of a prairie dog town and set it loose. He figured that it would be way too busy hunting and gobbling down prairie dogs to amble back toward Casper.

Another badger he caught was a bit more cantankerous.

When they feel threatened, badgers might try to escape by digging. And that’s just want this badger had done, trying to work its way under a privacy wall between two properties.

“When I got there, his butt was still out of the hole. So I hit him in the butt with my catch pole, and he turned around and hissed at me, and I was able to get the catch loop around him,” Lewis said.

“You’ve got to get that loop all the way over their front legs,” he added.

As with the other badger, Lewis took the irritated critter out to the prairie dog town and set it loose.

‘I Get Stuck With The Fricken’ Skunks’

While badgers haven’t been active in Casper this year, “It’s been bumper year for racoons,” Lewis said.

“I don’t know why. Apparently, nothing has been killing them, and they’ve been having a lot of babies,” he said. “I’ve been pickup up whole family groups. They’ve been getting into people’s yards, tearing things up, tipping over bird baths. Just acting like brats.”

He’s been critter catching part-time since 2012, and hopes to eventually retire from his day job so he can go full-time in the nuisance wildlife business.

It’s a specialized skill, to the best of his knowledge, Lewis said, and there’s only one other certified critter catcher in Wyoming.

It’s an important niche between city animal control and Game and Fish wildlife control, he added.

“Metro can’t deal with wild animals any more, for the most part,” he said. “And Game and Fish will only deal with the big animals,” he said. “They get the mountain lions and the bears, and I get stuck with the fricken’ skunks.”

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.