My minuscule contribution to science

We were stationed at the White Mountain Research Center. The home office is in Bishop, California, but we were at the Barcroft Station, located at elevation 12,500 feet. I adapted very well to high-altitude work, and spent an extraordinary summer exploring this amazing region.

Except for lab work at the station (fecal analysis of their diet), most of the marmot work was conducted from an elevated blind in a valley meadow, maybe half a mile from the station down a steep slope. The isolation at this spot was total and complete. We spent our days with binoculars in hand, observing the behavior of the marmot colony. We also did a lot of live-trapping of the animals (using Havahart traps), when we painted numbers on their sides for easy identification at a distance.

When the marmots gave their alarm calls, we learned instantly to scan the landscape for predators. Most of the predators at that elevation consisted of golden eagles and coyotes. But one day we heard alarm calls, scanned the land and sky, and spotted a different kind of culprit on the ground. And here’s the thing: We couldn’t figure out what it was.

It was a large-ish mammal, maybe three feet long, but low to the ground. It sort of galloped, and when it did so I distinctly remember it had a kind of cape-like flare to its fur. Since it was so far away, up the scree slope across the valley, we couldn’t get a clear view of it despite our binoculars. We were baffled.

The animal gradually got closer, and finally we were able to identify it. It was a badger.

A badger! Neither Hannah nor I had ever seen one in real life before, and we couldn’t believe we saw it at 12,000-foot elevation up in the White Mountains of California. We watched it as it skirted the meadow, with the marmots eyeing it warily and giving their alarm calls. Eventually it disappeared from sight.

As we climbed back up the valley toward the station later that afternoon, Hannah was keen to try to trap the badger in one of the Havahart traps, but I talked her out of it. First of all, the traps she had on hand were perfectly suited to marmots, but too small for a badger. And second – more importantly – badgers are vicious fighters, and there’s no possible way she would be able to safely remove it from the trap, much less mark it.

But we both had a lovely glow about the sighting because we knew we had seen something unique. Hannah later reported the observation to wildlife officials, and to the best of my knowledge it became the first (and possibly only) confirmed sighting of a badger at that elevation in recorded science. (From this Wikipedia description of badger habitat: “They are sometimes found at elevations up to 12,000 feet…”)

Unfortunately neither of us was credited for the sighting, so my minuscule contribution to science seems to have been lost. Oh well. I know what I saw, and Hannah can confirm it.