Snake Killers: Honey Badgers of The Kalahari [Nature Documentary]

the kalahari desert is home to the great predators of africa but one unlikely creature may be the most fierce and fearless of them all tough relentless and ravenous they readily take on all comers even africa's deadliest snakes theirs is a world few people know and even fewer have seen it is the secret world of the honey badger the arid expanses of the southwestern kalahari here in the kagalagadi trans-frontier park a rich variety of creatures have adapted to an unforgiving place to survive they must secure a niche among dangerous hunters and one of the most fearsome is the honey badger this one guided by a keen sense of smell is on the trail of a snake snakes are a great prize and she'll stay in hot pursuit even when the scent leads up a tree she's after a cape cobra one of the most venomous snakes in the world but the badger is undaunted and she's only held back by the flimsy twigs that can't support her weight she evades the cobras bite and quickly grabs it by the back of the head starting at the head she'll devour all of this five-foot cobra in just 15 minutes badgers are in constant motion and have to fuel themselves voraciously they've been known to eat some 30 feet of snake in just three days unlike most predators which rest after a big meal the honey badger just keeps going for more the kalahari is a paradise for rodents in places the sounds are riddled with their burrows the badger tests each one while these chanting goshawks watch and wait as she goes from hole to hole looking for prey she is watched also by a pair of jackals this is an unusual association of predators and one that the badger is all too familiar with she sniffs and blows into the burrows to detect an unlucky inhabitant when she senses something below she uses her exceptionally long claws to rake through the sand but the rat escapes and it's one for the jackals these freeloaders are no surprise guests they often shadow her she can't shake them off and often they will catch more than she does but this one is hers though distributed far and wide over africa and asia little is known about honey badges a south african husband and wife research team have embarked on the first major study of honey badgers in the wild for keith and colleen honey badgers are their passion there are myths in africa about a ferocious creature which is said to be almost indestructible but keith and colleen are determined to discover the truth but first find your badger and when all there is to go on our tracks they wouldn't get very far without the help of class creeper class is one of the last bushmen or sam born here who can still read the language of the sands when we first got here i think we were both intimidated the whole place seemed so vast and unfamiliar and then class came into our lives without him it would have all been impossible with what seems to be a sixth sense he tells them what he sees in the sound do you believe a badger cub through to adulthood is about as good as it can get for keith and colleen at first there are only fleeting glimpses of the cub when its mother carries it to a new den the mother doesn't make it easy for them to keep track of her she changes dens often badgers are notoriously shy and elusive it will take weeks before the badger mother will allow observers to share her life and when she does the cub is about three months old he's revealed as a lively little replica of his mother with the same striking coloration it warns of the fierce disposition he will one day display but for now he's barely weaned and it's time this youngster was introduced to a wider world today she's taking him along on his first foraging trip from now on he'll be expected to walk at least some other way it's a wobbly start but he soon gets the idea rain doesn't happen often in the kalahari but today's the day a few hundred yards and his legs can't carry him so she does for the rest of the way the cub is tired and wet this is his first brush with the cruel world outside his borough where only about half of the cubs survived to adulthood the mother interrupts her hunting to dig a burrow where they'll wait out the storm after the storm mother and cub continue on their way the researchers plan to spend the night with a favorite badger a young male they'll find him by following the radio signal coming from a small transmitter that has been placed in his body cavity i can only hear hp 12 is quite close but nothing else male badgers can cover up to 25 miles in a day and keith and colleen may climb many high dunes before they pick up the badger signal anything else the sound of thousands of barking geckos fill the kalahari night the males called to attract females alert to the dangers of rolling over in such rugged terrain colleen guides keith through the dunes following the signal she receives from the badger can i go over here tears eventually they find their badger cooling himself on a dune cayman's sandbathing it's on an open dune and he seems very relaxed what's the waypoint keith playpoint 18. the bushman tracker has named some of the badges this one he calls kleinman which means little man and little man is now ready to hunt again no one has ever followed badgers quite like this these journeys into the night are mystery tours where will he go what will happen next little man has found a puff adder that has just caught a gerbil and the badger does an extraordinary thing he swipes the gerbil from the puff otter's mouth then casually settles down near the deadly snake to eat its prey and when he's done he moves in on the puff adder itself puff adders have large fangs that can deliver a massive dose of lethal venom in a rapid strike he's coming here he comes the badgers real advantage is not so much its teeth and claws but its ferocity its your tenacity i think he's got it likes likes the badger has dispatched one of africa's most dangerous snakes as always he starts at the head destroying the lethal fangs but this time it may be too late look at his right cheek the right cheek it's sweating out caiman has been bitten by the puffetta right chief swelling and stopped eating the snake this is a tense moment for keith and colleen it's taken many months to get this close to little man he's quite a character and he's taught them a lot about badgers now it looks like he's showing them how readily a badger can die his breathing is very shallow and the swelling tennis ball size on his right cheek is just lying but after almost two hours there are signs of life it's o348 and he seems to be recovering but he's still got the swelling little is known about the immunity some animals may have to snake venom but this much is sure little man has survived the bite of a snake notorious for killing humans and now to their astonishment he returns to his deadly dinner every day mother and cub go foraging and he's fast learning to move like a badger but the constant trotting over the dunes is tiring for the little guy he's tired and hungry and while his mother digs for a lizard he's ready to nap right where he is with all this sand maybe if he moved a little his mother gives him a giant ground gecko she's hungry herself but lets him chew on it for a while he's just getting into it when his mother returns and this time the gecko is only his for as long as he can hold on to it the tussle has landed the cub on a nest of ants and immediately they attack him his mother isn't too concerned just another sharp lesson in the life of a badger cub and with a rough rescue he gets the message it's time to trot along even the little badger cub reacts to the scent of a leopard when badgers come across their tracks it's enough to send them trotting off in another direction leopards prowl throughout this part of the kalahari this one hides our newborn cubs in a rocky cave from its entrance she can look down on potential prey she must often leave her cubs alone for long periods when she goes hunting and like the badger she'll have to roam widely in the dunes to find enough food for their survival a slow-moving badger has drawn the attention of a leopard like many predators leopards quickly recognize an unfit animal this old female should be an easy catch using their powerful jaws leopards strangle their prey often within a few minutes but you just can't get a good hold on the badgers neck the skin is thick tough and loose by now other prey would be dead but this one still struggles fiercely she refuses to die after a battle lasting nearly an hour the old badger is finally all but dead the leopard departs with her half-blind nearly toothless prey and at least one badger myth appears to be true they are the very devil to kill predators are everywhere in the kalahari and the small cob is in constant danger while the mother digs the den in which he'll rest her rough signals only confuse him she wants him close to her very close but not in her way and he just can't get it right every so often keith and colleen must capture the badges they are studying they're stalking a female under large cub the best technique is an approach from downwind and with the advantage of surprise the longer legs have it though entangled in a strong net the badger still has the use of its powerful jaws and occasionally one will give keith a bite to remember it by keith quickly sets about sedating it colleen has caught the other one and she anxiously waits for keith i'm always worried when we had to do this the thought of of hurting them or harming them in any way but radio tracking was the only way we could regularly follow the same individuals we also needed to know exactly who these badges were their age their size conditions scars there's so much information we can only get this way as quickly as possible the badges are weighed measured and various samples taken and then keith places the badges in a shallow pit we've immobilized more than 70 badges now and only once had a problem when a female rolled into the sun before she came round now we've learned to dig a pit in the shade they're safer this way it's dark and cool when they can sleep off the effects of the drugs in their own time i feel we've done it right when they come around and shut off and start digging like nothing's happened the cub can be a handicap to this working mother she leaves him at the den while she goes hunting he should be safely below out of harm's way but he wants to explore a little first and he's unaware he's in danger the cub responds boldly if a bit clumsily with instant aggression tonight the mother's voracious appetite demands something substantial she's digging into the den of a pair of cape foxes which try to hinder her as much as they dare they have their pups down below the pups are scurrying about down there and the parents can hear the muffled barks powerless to help their pups the foxes can only listen and await the end the badger cub is thriving it's been a month since he went on his first foraging trip with his mother and while she digs a den he does some excavations of his own but he's now ready for a real den and a good sleep he's learned how to take a sand shower without getting in the way uh as usual she leaves her cub but this time far out of sight something terrible has happened to the cub he's been savagely mauled why and how is not clear he's dying but still his mother's instinct is to carry him away to safety so the next day the bushman tracker class is brought in to read the fate of the little cub from the tracks around his last 10. effortlessly he interprets the signs in the sand that eluded the researchers the previous day he tells of another badger that came and how that badger dragged the struggling cub from the den and ran some way with it in his jaws before the mother caught up with the intruder and fought to regain her cub the hands tell the story and the researchers learned that honey badgers will kill their own but why you cannot tell we'll never know if the badger misses her cub but for her own survival she must still hunt at the same relentless pace she's on the track of another cobra this one is much bigger than usual eventually she grabs the snake from behind and drags it to the ground the badger female will not be alone for long within a few weeks of the death of her cub she's in heat again and the males will seek her out badger courtship is an energetic affair undertaken with typical badger single-mindedness if this meeting is successful she'll have another cub in about two months but it will be far longer before the researchers see her again they have other badges to see and it will be many months before they meet up with this one again in the interim the kalahari will go through a cycle of seasonal changes more than a year has passed since the death of her cub and the badger mother has successfully raised another it's a female almost as big as her mother but still unable to fend for herself while the mother digs her big baby begs incessantly the cubs slow development is not unusual among carnivores with much to learn before they can become independent this young badger must become skilled at finding and killing a variety of for days at a time wherever the badgers roam so too go the researchers with temperatures approaching 115 degrees keith and colleen wait out the long hot hours under wet towels usually the towels are a blessing but sometimes they attract thirsty bees drawn to this unlikely source of moisture so keith and colleen will wait here in the company of bees until their badger goes hunting again on today's menu lizards hidden under the bark the mother is nearly as sure footed in a tree is on the ground but badgers are not born climbers for the cub such agility is months away the mother badger is not sniffing for prey she may be checking the credentials of the local male badgers the researchers have discovered that badgers visit certain places to defecate and leave sent messages for one another from this visit she may learn about the males and they in turn discover that she's in heat the cub is not aware of it yet but this visit could change her life it's not long before a suitor has picked up the mother's scent and is out in front in the race to reach her she's digging herself a burrow where she'll play hard to get until an acceptable male comes along but this male has no doubt that he's mr right he quickly homes in and with barely a pause enters the barrel he soon learns that catching her is not going to be easy she's below him now having doug another way out he's in a predicament with two escape holes to guard something tells the cubs she's in the way and she sculpts off on her own her close relationship with her mother has suddenly ended it's not an easy courtship it could be days before she'll consent to mate and then it may not be with this one other males have picked up her scent and converge on the scene they will all compete for a chance to mate and then there's this tough old character the dominant male victor of many battles when he visits a latrine he spells out his message as bluntly as he can measured and methodical the big male's crude charms have worked male and female will remain in the mating barrel for three or four days other males will look in but they must know they have little chance after three years in the desert keith and colleen will soon be moving on they reminisce with class about the unique glimpses they've shared of the world of the honey badgers they now have facts to replace the myths but they have revealed also an unusual animal one perhaps more incredible than the myths no longer a clumsy cub she's an independent honey badger now a bold fearless hunter indistinguishable from her mother she has acquired the skills to survive in her harsh world and one day she too will become the sternest of teachers you

Channel: TheAnimalArea

Views: 13,670,407

Keywords: animal life, national geographic, nat geo wild, animal planet, wildlife, nature documentary, nature, wild

Id: chtdRCrZKuw

Length: 40min 17sec (2417 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2015