Posted on 02/04/2020 6:06:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
Peninsula Open Space Trust said the caught-on-camera moment marks 'the first time this type of behavior has been captured' in the Bay Area
An apparently playful coyote and their supposed badger buddy were captured on camera traveling together under a highway near the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The adorable video made its way to Twitter Monday evening, quickly garnering hundreds of thousands of likes as well as prompting the creation of hashtags such as #CoyoteBadgerBuddies and #CoyoteBadger2020.
Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which protects open space along the Peninsula and in the South Bay, said its wildlife cameras spotted the coyote and badger passing through a culvert underneath a highway near Gilroy.
POST said the caught-on-camera moment marks "the first time this type of behavior has been captured" in California's Bay Area.
"This blew us away," Neal Sharma, Wildlife Linkages Program Manager for POST, said. "This is the kind of footage folks [who] study these things, work on these issues, we dream of this, this kind of an interaction."
While the sighting is historic in the Bay Area, it's actually not surprising to see the two species interact in the wild.
"Studies have shown that a badger and coyote hunting together can be beneficial for both species, as they pursue favorite prey such as ground squirrels," according to POST's website.
You can follow Post online for more details and videos:
Facebook: @POSTfans Twitter: @POST_fans Insta: @peninsulaopenspacetrust
So, all those sweet animal stories the English used to write for children about “rustlings in the hedgerow” were really true.
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