Kalahari Honey Badgers Field Sketch by Alison Nicholls ©2012

Kalahari Honey Badgers Field Sketch by Alison Nicholls

Honey Badgers have a bit of a reputation. A well-deserved reputation. For being indestructible & fearless. They will take on anything. They eat puff adders!. Need I say more?

One memorable night in Chobe National Park in Botswana we found our campsite surrounded by about a thousand buffalo heading down to the floodplain to drink and graze. The buffalo were passing either side of us as we sat at our campfire and the billowing dust, strong bovine smell and sound of thousands of passing hooves was astounding. In the midst of it all we saw a pair of incredibly long claws under one of the trucks and spotted a honey badger, attempting to chew our tires. Without thinking about the aforementioned reputation of the honey badger, I stood up and shouted at it. Amazingly enough it retreated to take its chances among the buffalo (they probably didn’t thank us for that!). Soon after that we were forced to retreat into our vehicles as the sheer volume of buffalo increased, lost calves ran around bleating and grumpy old bulls stalked through the brush. It was an amazing evening.

But back to the honey badger. If you want to see what kind of character a honey badger can be, watch this video from the BBC about Stoffel, a honey badger reared at the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa.

Enjoy!

Until next time…
Alison

Art Inspired by Africa and Conservation
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