Dietary Habits of Japanese Badgers (Meles anakuma) in Northern Japan: Relationship with Food Availability

Abstract

We studied temporal (monthly and inter-yearly) variations in the dietary habits of wild Japanese badgers (Meles anakuma) inhabiting Ishinomaki City, northern Japan through fecal analyses, focusing on the relationship with the availability of main diets. The diets of the badgers in our study site were mainly composed of three items: fruits, arthropods, and earthworms, which were similar to those in other study sites in Japan. The degree of fruit and earthworm feeding by the badgers was higher throughout the year, whereas arthropod feeding was higher during spring and summer. Vertebrates were less detected in badger feces. During the fall of 2021, the percentage of fruits was greater than that in 2020, while that of arthropods and earthworms showed reverse trends, likely due to inter-yearly difference in fruit availability. For the three predominant food items, no significant correlation was found between feeding and availability. Our results imply that, similar to European badgers, the Japanese badger can be viewed as a generalist animal that uses profitable resources when available but shifts their preference to other food resources when availability of other primary food resources increases.