Coyote Badger Buddies: More Footage Emerges Of Bay Area Pair

SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, CA — Here's some welcome Monday news: there's an update to the saga of the coyote-badger "buddies" filmed walking together under a Bay Area highway.

New footage shows that the duo had been together for about an hour before the encounter that became famous last week after it was shared by the Peninsula Open Space Trust — the conservation nonprofit whose camera caught the encounter.

In the new footage, taken earlier the same night, the badger can be seen walking around the camera while the coyote approaches from the darkness at the end of the highway tunnel. The two then team up and trot down the tunnel together.

This was no chance encounter. Coyotes and badgers have been known to hunt together, having found that their respective skills in chasing and digging complement each other nicely.

Their partnership has been documented in scientific studies and Native American records, POST said in a blog post. But this video is the first time the behavior has been captured in the Bay Area.

"We knew we had something special the moment we saw the footage," said Neal Sharma, POST's Wildlife Linkages Program Manager, in the blog post. "It’s an amazing inter-species relationship, it almost seems like they’re braving this somewhat hazardous situation together."

POST, along with partner Pathways for Wildlife, has set up more than 50 remote-sensor cameras to study how wild animals interact with the highways that cut through the area around the southern Santa Cruz Mountains, near Gilroy. They station cameras at bridges and culverts — tunnels that run under roads, like the one here.

The footage lit up Twitter after the clip appeared Feb. 3, spawning hashtags including #CoyoteBadgerBuddies.

But they're not the first animals to make an appearance on POST's wildlife cameras. Bobcats, coyotes, raccoons and a skunk have all been filmed near the very same culvert used by the badger and coyote, POST said.

POST said they've been delighted to watch the worldwide interest taken in the coyote and badger. And they hope their research will help reveal how animals are trying to adapt to threats to their environment, from highway construction to climate change.

— Open Space Trust (@POST_fans) February 10, 2020