The badger is in its winter sleep, but what about the bears?
November started with snowfalls and minus degrees. Nature quickly took on a wintery aspect. At the same time the ground was unfrozen and under the snow there was even water in shallow spots.

Posted by the Animal of the Year team 12.12.2016

This year the first badger monitoring in Estonia took place. It was an important enterprise  with regard to the animal of the year. In the beginning of the year we did not know the status of the badger population. It could be guessed that badgers were not too badly off since they  are observed here and there all the time, but nothing more precise than a conjecture could be stated until now.  Since there is no great hunting interest in badgers data collected by hunters are not available either.

On the threshold of early winter let us glance at the autumn this year. The peculiarity of the 2016 autumn was the early snow. Already on October 25 the first snowmen appeared in Estonia. True, their life was not long..