National Badger Day: 10 fun facts you might not have known

To celebrate National Badger Day here are 10 fun facts about our animal kingdom namesake

1. Badgers can run up to 16-19 miles per hour which is the average speed of electric mobility scooters.
2. Eating rotten fruit causes Badgers to get drunk.
3. The Welsh word for Badger is ‘moch deaer’ which translates as ‘earth pig’.
4. They normally live between 4-10 years but have been known to live up to 26 years when in captivity.
5. They can weigh up to 40 pounds which is about the same weight as 120 medium sized bananas or an average human leg.
6. Badgers form clans, called cetes, of about 2-15 Badgers.
7. Badgers refuse to defecate in their setts, series of underground tunnels, and instead create a shallow pit on the edge of their territory for lavatory business.
8. Badgers were eaten in WWII Britain and surprisingly are still eaten in Russia to this day.
9. Around 50,000 get killed by cars each year.
10. In 2018, Apple added the Badger emoji in their IOS 12 update.

Photo Credit: Andy Bellard