Short Wave - Animal Slander! The Origins Of "Badgering" Will Bum You Out

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

It's the latest installment of our series, "Animal Slander," where we take a common saying about animals and see what truth there is to it. The case before the Short Wave court today: "badgering." We look at the dark origins of the word and explore the wild world of badger biology with University of Oxford scientist Tanesha Allen.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Water in the car. Be seated. Hey, everybody. Emily Kwong here with Maddie Safaya. Hello, Emily. I have missed you. I feel like it's been a geologic epic since we were last on an episode together.

What do you have for us today? Well, Emily, it's time for one of my favorite shortwave segments. A little series we call Animal Slander. Yes. Finally, I mean, since we have not done one of these episodes in over a year, let's tell our audiences what they've won. Let's remind them what this is all about. Well, Emily, animal slander is a series where we debunk common sayings about animals that are incorrect, often disparaging, pretty much downright slander. Wow, I forgot about how much we used that devil. Okay, so far in this series, we've debunk statements like, you have the memory of a goldfish. Fish can actually remember things for months. Thank you very much.

Blind as a bat. bats can see you and your lies. And bird brained. I mean, birds are smart. Crows make tools. They will memorize your face. And not forget it. Not only are these sayings wrong, they're kind of rude and ablest, so, you know, maybe

stop saying them. Yep. Okay. So, Maddie, what animal are we defending today in the court of Shorewave? Today, my dear friend, we turn to the humble European badger to investigate the term badgering, to harass or annoy persistently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, Maddie, please stop badgering me to turn on my camera during Zoom meetings.

Listen, I miss faces and body language. You know that, but I hear you. Listen, a girl can hide her extensive sweatshirt collection from her colleagues should she choose. That's your right. That's your right. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway, today on the show, we are talking badgers.

Where the term badgering came from, their complex, underground lifestyle, and we'll explore the world of mutual butt kissing. Excuse me what? This is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. Okay, Maddie, we are back with an episode of a fan favorite animal slander. The series where we look at common phrases about animals and find out if there's any truth to them. That's right. So today we are looking into the term badgering.

And, Emily, this one isn't as straightforward as the others. I was trying to figure out, you know, are badgers particularly tenacious? Are they insistent? Like, do they annoy each other more than other critters? And what I found is that there's absolutely no badger-driven reason for this phrase. The experts that I talked to said, generally speaking, badgers are pretty conflict avoidant, actually. And the origins of the word badgering are pretty dark and not very science at all. Oh, no.

All right. It sounds like we're to blame for all of this. So what is it? So what I have been able to find, at least, is that the phrase probably comes from this horrific practice of badger baiting, which has a history in a few places, including the UK, where people sick dogs on badgers for sport. Like the dogs are trained to find and pull the badgers out of their homes or a confined space and essentially attack them over and over again. So the word badgering is probably actually based off the dog's behavior. not anything the badgers have done.

That is objectively horrible. Yeah, yeah. The badgers are pretty much always killed. The dogs can get injured and killed too. It's awful. And, you know, it's been illegal for a long time in places like the UK, but even with increased protections for badgers throughout the years, it's still a problem. I guess case closed then? Yeah.

Slander? Maddie, this has been very dark and very bleak. Why did you put us through this? Okay, I know, I know, I know. Did not expect to find that out? It's just awful human cruelty. But the reason I'm bringing this to you is because along the way, I found out how weirdly delightful and interesting this creature is. So for the rest of this episode, that's what we're going to focus on, the amazing lives of Bounders with the help of Shortwave's new resident Badger expert.

My name is Tanisha Allen, and I did my PhD in the, Department of Zoology at Oxford, studying European badgers and olfactory communication. Are you telling me there are people out there who study how badgers communicate using their sense of smell? Oh, Emily, just you wait, just you wait. You're going to feel a couple of ways about it. I'll say that. I'll say that. But we'll get into it later. We'll get into it later. Okay. So, Maddie, where do you want to start? All right. So first, there are several types of badgers out there. We are going to stick with your in Badgers today. If you haven't seen one of these, they have this really distinctive face with two black

stripes running from just above their little snoot all the way up over their eyes and ears to their neck. On average, they can weigh about 20 pounds or so, but, you know, their weight fluctuates throughout the seasons. Okay. And where do they live? Okay. So their houses are really cool.

They live in these complex underground dwellings called sets. So think like a bunch of people. of hollowed-out chambers connected by a series of tunnels. And there are normally multiple types of sets in a particular Badger Klan's territory. So, like, the best analogy would be, like, the main set would be your main house. The annex would be a guest house, like, on your property. And then the outlier would be if you had a small apartment, a few blocks away. And those different types of sets can serve different purposes for the Klan that lives in them.

And Emily, these things can get big. Like the main set, which is kind of like the social hub, can have dozens of entrances and underground chambers. And those chambers are connected by a network of tunnels, like I said, that can total up to be hundreds of meters in length. Well, this sounds like my dream housing situation. Like, I love communal living. But Maddie, this sounds like a lot of work for the bedders.

I mean, so much digging, so much planning. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons they use these sets, their homes for a really long time. Badgers tend to use these sets for decades and decades. I mean, Emily, there's documentation of some sets being continuously occupied for centuries. Tenisha told me about this one particular set in Hertfordshire, which is in southern England. It was built in the late 1700s, and it is still being used today. I mean, is that wild?

That is one historical badger set. So are you saying that these young adult badgers don't, like, move out? and dig their own homes? Yeah. So these sets are kind of passed down from generation to generation. So the majority of Badgers stay at home. Or as Tenisha puts it.

They're kind of like millennials in that regard. They're just like, this is just too much effort to actually go find my own home. And, you know, and mom and dad don't mind me being here anyways. Like the housing market just isn't, you know, isn't that great. The economy. Half our audience feels both seen and insulted. right now. Listen, they're just trying to pay off those student badger loans. You know, it's tough out there.

True. True, true, true. Okay, so Badger homes I'm gathering are very well thought out. They can be huge. And they're used by generations of Badgers, which is really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing that really got me was when Tenisha started talking about Badger's excellent sense of smell. Oh, yeah. Because they live underground and they are nocturnal, they rely on it more than their eyesight. Wow. And a lot of their communication is actually through smell and scent marking. Sent marking. What is that? Okay, you are going to love this, Emily Kwong. I almost never do when you say that, Maddie Safaya.

Okay. So Badgers have this unique gland called the sub-coddle gland. It is right below the base of their tail, so in between their little tail and their butthole. And it produces this secretion. Tunisia describes as buttery. It does have this like buttery. texture to it, and it's because it has a lot of fatty acids, protein, and water. And so when I talk to people about this during my outreach work, I call it badger butter. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, badger butter. I'm out. You will be pleased to know, Emily Kwong, that Tenisha told me it has a

similar amount of calories to many butters we humans use. Why would I be pleased to know that? Why? I know, you're right. I just honestly, I couldn't be alone with it after I learned it. So anyways, this badger butter can tell you a lot about a badger, like what clan they belong to, reproductive status, their age, that kind of stuff. Badgers use this secretion along with poop and pee to communicate with each other. And how they distribute this secretion is that they just walk along and push their butt down on whatever they're marking, whether it's the ground or rock, a tree, or another badger. and then they just keep on walking.

Wait, okay, you're telling me they, like, smear some badger butter about, and does she mean, like, mark other badgers too? Ah, yes, Emily, we've arrived at my favorite part. So there are a couple of reasons one badger might want to mark another badger. One reason would be if they want to kind of maintain this common group odor, so that way it will be easier for them to sniff another badger and say, oh, yes, this badger is part of my group, or no, this is a completely different badger.

What are they doing here? And how they do that is two badgers would put their glands against each other. The scientific term for this is called mutual alimarking, but sometimes it's called mutual butt kissing. Nature is a magical place. A magical place, indeed. I'm glad that was your reaction. And Tanisha told me, you know, if you're interested in the scientific basis, this probably serves to transfer bacteria to each other, resulting in a shared smell, since, you know, bacteria are often

behind different body odors. But my particular favorite type of badger's scent marking is called sequential or one-way allot marking. This is when one badger is doing their thing, minding their business, and another badger will come along and put their butt on top of the other badger's back. and this will be a useful way to advertise the badger's general presence or to advertise that they're single and ready to mingle. It's, you know, it's very convenient just because the badgers at their marking can just be used as a walking billboard. And it's, you know, it's kind of like if you printed off your Tinder profile

and put on your housemates back. So, so wait, these badgers aren't just flirting and looking out for themselves. they're also helping their buddies with this, like, marking mechanism. Yeah. And that is helpful because badgers mate with lots of badgers, inside and outside of their clan. And their reproductive biology is fascinating. I'll just tell you my favorite part. So badgers can technically mate at pretty much any time of the year, but, you know, pregnancy takes a lot of energy and resources, right?

Sure. So instead of trying to time out the exact right time to mate, the females can do the females can do this thing where their eggs get fertilized, but instead of implanting in the uterus quickly, like most mammals, it kind of just floats around in there until the time is right. Wow. It's called delayed implantation, and that ball of cells can hang out for months, like from now until around Christmas. That is incredibly convenient.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, very strategic. It's excellent family planning right there. And, you know, Emily, like, when I thought of Badgers, I didn't know any of the of this going in? I mean, badger butter? What a delight. What a delight. And when I asked Tanisha, what she hopes people will take away from this episode, is that badgers are more complicated than people might think. They have so much interesting stuff going on with their biology, social structures, communication. Hopefully people appreciate badgers more after this. And if anyone decides to, you know, print off their Tinder profile and put on their

housemates back, I would love for someone to, you know, just show me that. Just show me that. You heard it here first, Shortwave fans. Do your friends in Tunisia a favor. And as for the term badgering, Maddie, now when someone says I'm badgering them, I'm going to say, what do you mean? I'm being an excellent wingwoman for my friends.

You're welcome. Yeah. Oh, you think my sense of smell is awesome and that I'm a master architect? Thank you. Thank you for a compliment. All right. That's it from us.

If you have an idea for a future animal slander episode, send it to us at Shortwave at NPR. Special links to NPR climate reporter Rebecca Hersher, Badger enthusiast for suggesting this episode. A little dark maybe, but overall delightful, just like you, Herscher. This episode was produced by Thomas Liu, fact-checked by Rasha Aireti, and edited by Biet Le. The audio engineer for this episode was Gilly Moon. I'm Emily Kwong. I'm Maddie Safia.

And this is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.