European badgers are social, unlike North American badgers.
And unlike our badgers, they will readily scavenge off of people. In some European cities, they are very much like our raccoons.
North American badgers are one of few mesopredators that have become more scarce since European colonization. Most other mesopredators, like coyotes, raccoons, and opossums, have become far more common.
So European badgers thrive in the presence of Western Civilization; North American badgers do not.
There’s got to be a metaphor in that somewhere, but I just can’t divine it.
If you’ve got one, let me hear it!
That photo is a time lapse:
This one is real:
http://badgerwatcher.com/2010/02/12/why-do-badgers-live-in-clans/
Six badgers.
I had read a bit of Hans Kruuk’s analysis on sociality in European badgers in another book. I can’t remember which one.
It may have been in one of those Jeffrey Moussaeiff Masson super squishy, highly emotionalist books I used to read.