Saturday was going to be a nice day. Another forum member JOHAN and I was going to meet for the first time and visit a hunting store and discuss hunting and rifles. I picked him up at the railway station and just some moments before I had got a phone call telling me that there was a Badger in my trap. I offered Johan to take it with my 22 long revolver while I should take some photos.

And here are the results.




So this day turned out to be really good, and I think there is someone many miles from here to blame for that. And who do I think of? Saeed off course.

[ 12-01-2002, 05:15: Message edited by: cchunter ]

Looking the size I would say it is a young one. They taste good. Try it. But remove all fat.

Hello from Scotland~

Badgers are " PROTECTED " in Britain with very harsh penalites ! Badger groups are always telling the public they are RARE ! They are NOT !

But the law is the law........

Im interseted in why you hunt/trap them and your uses for them ? food,? pelt ?

I have skinned a lot when i worked at a museum (road kill) They did not smell very appealing, even tried to feed it to my ferrets,it is the only animal apart from fox,stoat they would NOT eat !

Englander

Englander

YES, badgers smells very much, but not very well. We smelled this one from a long way

Badgers in Sweden are considered as vermins. Some hunts them to use as bait for other animals such as fox, crows, and other vermins. Few takes care of the pelt from them. I have never heard that any sane man in Sweden have been eating badger. I will certainly not try

This one were caught in a trap and shoot with a revolver in 22 lr. Christer are "fortunate" to have a few badgers families living on his land. I belive he has caught 15 soo far.

U.K. is really a strange country from some aspects. Particulary that badgers are protected

/ JOHAN

[ 12-01-2002, 02:47: Message edited by: JOHAN ]

Badger trapping

I trap the Badgers to help the farmer, they walk around in the fields a lot and spoil the harvest. This one was number 13 in two seasons with those traps. I have also shot 3 nearby while hunting. The best week this spring I caught 3 in 6 days. I only put the Badger outside the trap and in three days it will be away, propably Fox or other Badgers. I have made a headmount for one of the trapped. (see photo)



More photos will be posted on monday, because I also took some pics with my old fashioned camera.

By the way, the Badger is also protected in Denmark.

[ 12-01-2002, 03:06: Message edited by: cchunter ]

We have quite a few badgers in Finland also and they are being hunted too. Nowadays they are not considered as bad vermins as foxes, minks and...hm, what do you call the racoon-like animal that we have(supikoira), in english?

Anyway, we mostly hunt badgers with traps and dogs that can drag or drive them out of their holes in the ground. I have also read a story about a guy (a well-known finnish survivalist and author) making food of badger. I believe he cooked a young badger in water for hours, using plenty of salt and some spices too. Finally it was turned into soup of some kind and then eaten. He wrote that it was OK.

Wouldnt probably try it myself

Badger as food

During World War 2 Badger and Fox were often used as food in Sweden.

In Italy they eat badger.
They are protected here, so I'm going to assume they are all road kills... ...but then it is also illegal to pick up road kill here....
I don't know how they get them.

In any case they prefer to eat them over the summer period, when the meat is better because the badger feed predominantly on grains and cereal with little meat in their diet. I have been told it is a very sweet meat.

They also eat porcupine(also protected), wich is considered a delicacy, I have seen one that had been scun (for mounting) and the meat was a nice pale pink color.
Porcupine are a bit of a bother to prepare because you must not skin them, it must be plucked like a chicken...

An old Sicilian saying goes;

I don't know, I didn't see, I wasn't there, and if I was I was sleeping.

I've never hunted or trapped badger, but I've blown one to pieces with a home made handgrenade, as a teenager. Long story but as a youngster I was the terror of the neighborhood here in Virginia and in Colorado and Oklahoma, making and playing with explosives. my father developed a serious case of paranoia looking for booby traps in the yard, that I rigged for him on various doors, gates, trip wires etc. Found myself on Mothers shit list when I blew her cat out of a tree.
The badger happened to be digging a new hole or digging after some critter. I had a Prince Albert can with two 1960's M-80s fused together, surrounded by small rocks, I lit the fuse and dropped it into the hole. I suppose the badger took exception to the burning smell and was leaving, he was close it when it exploded. Needless to day he was a bit worse for the experience.
Jim

arkypete

We must have been growing up in the same neigbourhood

My father were NOT happy about my adventures with explosives and flameble liquids, but it was great fun

I wonder why most riflenuts I know has done the same pranks/stuff as kids

/ JOHAN

It is not common to eat badger here in Germany. But more and more hunters try it and confirm that they are very good. For myself, I have eaten a lot. And if they are young one, they are really good.
We hunt them near their holes or sitting on the stand and getting them accidential. A lot of them are living here. Even the farmers are claiming about destroyed corn (our fields are small, so they are claiming for each stem).

I forgot: the smoked ham from a badger shall be the best you can get.
Till yet I never tried. I always got them too early for smoking and now is the oven full with pork and the badger is prohibited till next August.
But I hope can try it the next years.

The Badger in the trap

I wonder what causes the smell in badgers.

Is it in the males from rutting/urine/secretions etc? A pheromone?

Does the "smell" taint the meat when skinning and that is why some people think the meat is OK and others think it is horrible. Perhaps it is a mental association.

It was interesting on my last safari. Waterbuck is not highly regarded as venison by many yet if skun carefully with minimal contact with hands on meat after touching skin it is reported to be OK. In Zim the crew "shampooed" the waterbuck and the PH then said the venison would be fine.