Rare footage of a badger in the south
(Video: Mark Katz, Natura and Parks Authority)
Nature and Parks Authority inspector Mark Katz was approaching the end of his workday on a patrol in the Negev mountains when he suddenly spotted a rather rare spectacle, a European badger walking about.
2 View gallery
The badger is usually found in the north of Israel
(Photo: Mark Katz, Nature and Parks Authority)
"In all the 20 years that I have been supervising regional areas, this is the first time I have had the privilege of seeing and even documenting a badger. I thought I'd seen it twice in the past. The footage was in the last light, and it was brief," he said.
Nitzan Segev, an ecologist in the Arava at the Nature and Parks Authority, added: "The badger is found in Israel's northern and central regions, but since it is nocturnal, encounters happen mainly following roadkill accidents. In recent years, it has been captured by surveillance and tracking cameras more commonly, which also operate at night. The inspector's encounter with the badger occurred in the last light, as the badger begins its activity."
Badgers are rare in the south of the country. Out of 5,884 observations reported to the Nature and Parks Authority, only seven were reported south of the line of Mitzpe Ramon, each of which was a sighting of a single individual, in the Negev Mountain Nature Reserve, near main rivers, and along the southern Arava, up to the outskirts of the city of Eilat, where it was last seen in 2022.