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Wild badger caught in Lancaster shopping center

by The AV Times Staff • July 21, 2014

Badger caught in Lancaster 7.19.14 2
Deputies captured the badger with a pole snare and transferred custody of the badger to Animal Control officers. (Photo courtesy LASD)

LANCASTER – A wild badger seen running around a Vallarta Supermarket parking lot in Lancaster was captured without incident this past Saturday, authorities said.

The incident occurred around 7:30 p.m., Saturday July 19, in the 1800 block of West Avenue I in Lancaster, according to a press release from the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station. Read it below:

CHP and Animal Control requested Lancaster Station deputies to respond when a wild badger was discovered running loose in a local parking lot.

Deputies captured the badger with a pole snare and transferred custody of the badger to Animal Control officers.

There were no reports of injuries to personnel or civilians.

Animal Control officers stated that the animal is not native to the area and it is unknown how the animal got there.  Animal Control officers will continue to investigate this incident and request anyone with information to contact the Department of Animal Control at [661-940-4191].

Last summer, Lancaster Sheriff’s deputies encountered a large alligator, a kangaroo and a baby monkey in a van that was reported for “suspicious activity” near the corner of 50th Street West and Avenue K. The unusual traffic stop ended on a high note, once deputies discovered that the animals were part of the “Zoo to You” program that had just left Quartz Hill Elementary School. Read more here.

An exotic-animal encounter was not nearly as amicable for Palmdale Sheriff’s deputies who helped corral a camel that was running loose in Acton after biting at least one man this past Valentine’s Day. Read more about that here.  

Filed Under: Lancaster

22 comments for "Wild badger caught in Lancaster shopping center"

  1. Stinger says

    July 22, 2014 at 6:51 pm

    Badgers? We don’ need no steenkin’ badgers!

    • William says

      July 22, 2014 at 9:19 pm

      That was good.

  2. Wiilaim says

    July 22, 2014 at 6:18 pm

    Almost 20 comments on an article about a badger. Why, that’s almost as many people as voted in the last local election.

    • Stinger says

      July 22, 2014 at 6:27 pm

      Hah! X-D

  3. Jean Cook says

    July 22, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    If wild badgers are not native to this area, why when I lived in the middle of the desert on avenue A years ago, did I wake up to a female on my front porch? Yes, they do live here, but something drove that one into town. Maybe it was hungry or needed water. Remember we are in a drought, which means less food for the wild animals!!
    Please leave some sort of small water vessel in your yard for the birds.

  4. Earl Staley says

    July 22, 2014 at 6:06 am

    I saw a badger that had been hit by a car on 120th street west about 30 years ago.

  5. Dan Miller says

    July 22, 2014 at 3:39 am

    These animals ARE native to the area. I grew up there and encountered them in the wild, often. What IS unusual is for them to be anywhere humans are. They have a particular distrust for human activity and will usually move if a human walks near their den. Humans very rarely see evidence of them because they are such fastidious animals that they clean up after themselves and leave no trace of their having been there except the den itself.

  6. Meagan says

    July 21, 2014 at 10:16 pm

    Honey badger don’t care!

  7. j says

    July 21, 2014 at 7:36 pm

    It wondered from the desert woodland preserve!

  8. anthony says

    July 21, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    Chp and animal control called the deputies to catch a wild animal???? Ummm ok I thought that would be animal control… ???? Lol

    • Irena says

      July 21, 2014 at 8:21 pm

      Animal control usually only deals with domesticated animals. Fish and wildlife is for everything else.

  9. lol says

    July 21, 2014 at 3:45 pm

    I can’t even……what?

  10. Bob says

    July 21, 2014 at 11:48 am

    There were probably American Badgers in this area before humans came. This is not completely outside of it’s range of habitat.

    Chances are it has lived in the vacant fields past H and probably moved from one of the many mountain ranges surrounding the AV.

    Badgers live in a wide range.

    Animal Control doesn’t even know that Ave I continues on to become Lancaster Road, or that Lancaster Road even exists. Fish and Game would have been a better agency, though sometimes barely, but at least they know Badgers are a California Species of Special Concern (a protected species in California.)

    • Kathy says

      July 21, 2014 at 3:27 pm

      Hope the shelter does not kill him, they love to kill everyday over there! One of the worse shelters in southern California. Should of called Fish and game.

      • soapbox journal says

        July 21, 2014 at 5:42 pm

        If people would spay and neuter their pets, and stop dumping them on the side of the road when they are tired of them, then AVC would not have to kill animals. I doubt they do it because they enjoy killing dogs and cats.

        • Badger mania says

          July 21, 2014 at 7:22 pm

          I cannot bring myself to neutering my badger. He really is quite the badger Casanova.

          • Diana says

            July 21, 2014 at 9:12 pm

            LoL. That’s priceless.

      • Irena says

        July 21, 2014 at 8:23 pm

        They do not “love” to kill, they have no other choice because irresponsible people keep flooding the facility with unwanted pets. For every dog or cat neutered, it keeps something like 100 unwanted animals out of the shelter every year.

    • loretta says

      July 21, 2014 at 4:38 pm

      i agree i remember as a child going through the Antelope Valley with my dad and he stopped the truck had me get out to see the dead badger and he told me it was probably the last one id ever see and he was almost right that would b over forty yrs ago

  11. Douglas wade says

    July 21, 2014 at 11:48 am

    I am glad they caught him. I spotted him at 20th West and Arbuckle Way. Got out and photographed him. He did not like me getting close to him. I talked to my neighbors who called Animal Control.

    • alex says

      July 21, 2014 at 9:05 pm

      I was driving by and saw how you were scared when taking them pics

      • Just Saying says

        July 22, 2014 at 7:39 am

        Badgers are temperamental and unpredictable. They can sprint up to 19 MPH, and have been known to take down coyotes. While you’re standing there showing how tough you are, a badger will launch at you and rip out your femoral artery with one bite. You’ll bleed out before you can find the 9 on your phone.

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