Transmission courtesy of EENet
Introduction and illustrations Tiit Hunt, www.rmk.ee*
Estonian text posted 24.10.2019
Stream for mobile devices if the above does not work: iPhone, iPad, Android. VLC
For older computers: Flash Player
The web camera has been installed for some time in a burrow, or sett, dug in the artificial hillock in the Tallinn Zoo. Of the eleven tunnels in the burrow six are actively used by the badgers at the moment.
The presence of the badgers in the zoo was discovered only this year in March when ”suspicious” tracks were seen on the fresh snow that led to a burrow dug out at the verge of Veskimetsa under the ”chemical hut”. It may be supposed that the same badgers now have moved to a living initially dug out by foxes and recently adjusted by badgers for living. Records from the summertime trail camera showed that offspring, either two or three young, had been born to the badger pair.
.
From the camera image stream it was possible in a few days to see three individuals; it was difficult to distinguish between young ones having achieved grown-up size and adults. The night before last and today too the badgers appeared in camera view at 20.26 and their activities could be observed with varying success until 21.
The badger is the latest arrival of the ”illegals” that have arrived at the Zoo.
In the about 80 ha-sized territory of the zoo over time other creatures have moved in freely and voluntarily and obviously there are those that have always lived here voluntarily – indigenous species.
Recently the brown hare has become an urban inhabitant and a real conqueror of Tallinn living besides the zoo in the Haaberst district also in many areas within the city limits, for instance in the Kristiine and Mustamäe districts and even in the city centre itself around the City Hall.
Animal species that manage well in their natural habitats increasingly more often find suitable territories in the city as well. The badger and the brown hare have good times at the moment and of course also the roe deer; some ten of the latter have set up living on the zoo territory.
We will see how many of the different animal species freely living in the zoo will come to the badger sett; until now badger, brown hare, roe deer and the yellow-necked field mouse have been recorded.
Technical support: www.veebikaamera.ee
Participating in the enterprise: