Badger need no stinking badgers!” In Europe, badgers were traditionally used to predict the length of winter. The badger is the state animal of the US state of Wisconsin and Bucky Badger is the mascot of the athletic teams at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The badger is also the official mascot of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada; The University of Sussex, England; and St Aidan's College at the University of Durham. In 2007, the appearance of honey badgers around the British base at Basra, Iraq, fuelled rumours among the locals that British forces deliberately released "man-eating" and "bear-like" badgers
American badger with brown or blackish "badges" marking the cheeks and a white stripe extending from the nose to the base of the head. In the subspecies "T. t. berlandieri", the white head stripe extends the full length of the body, to the base of the tail. The American badger is a fossorial carnivore. It preys predominantly on pocket gophers (Geomyidae), ground squirrels ("Spermophilus"), moles (Talpidae), marmots ("Marmota"), prairie dogs ("Cynomys"), pika ("Ochotona"), woodrats ("Neotoma"), kangaroo rats ("Dipodomys"), deer mice ("Peromyscus"), and voles ("Microtus"), often digging to pursue prey into their dens, and sometimes plugging tunnel entrances with objects. The American badger