The Steppe Families series

After the spy games of foxes and corsac foxes, it's time to meet those who don't like fuss, value personal boundaries, and resolve issues in the Korgalzhyn thickets solely through force, authority, or age-old tenacity. Today, the Aleboo team will tell you about two heavyweights of our region. One is a secretive, perfectionist engineer, and the other is a true armored all-terrain vehicle that fears no obstacle. Meet the Asian badger and the wild boar. Badger: the meticulous master of underground tunnels. The badger is a formidable creature (from late summer and throughout the fall, it "gains" fat and weighs up to 22-25 kg). It is easily recognized by its signature "suit": a gray, coarse fur coat and a white muzzle with two thick black stripes across the eyes. While marmots build simply large apartments, badgers construct veritable underground multi-story cities, which scientists call "fortified settlements." These are colossal labyrinths with dozens of entrances, ventilation shafts, and multi-level bedrooms extending up to 5 meters underground. Wow fact: badgers are the most obsessively neat creatures in the steppe. Unlike foxes, which can make a mess of their burrows, badgers perform a thorough cleaning twice a year (in spring and fall). They completely remove the old bedding and drag in armfuls of fresh, dry grass and leaves. Furthermore, badgers have a special "outhouse" near their burrows—a small, neat hole. They won't start a new one until they've filled it and filled it up. A true aristocrat! Badgers live in close-knit families, are very attached to their homes, and hibernate during the winter. Unlike marmots or hedgehogs, badgers hibernate deeply but intermittently (often called winter sleep). Before going to sleep, a badger family stuffs the entrances of their burrows with dry leaves and clay. This protects their "home" from icy winds and predators, and retains heat well. The cradle (the outermost chamber) is lined with a thick layer of fresh grass. Badgers are monogamous animals and live in close-knit families. In winter, they gather in one main sleeping chamber, snuggle tightly together, and fall asleep cuddled together to maximize body heat conservation. A badger's body temperature during hibernation drops only a few degrees (unlike rodents, whose temperature can drop to almost freezing). If there is a strong and prolonged thaw in winter, badgers may wake up, briefly emerge, bask in the sun near their burrow, and even refresh their bedding, after which they return to sleep. Badgers' hibernation times vary greatly depending on the region. In northern regions, they may hibernate from October to April, while in the south, where winters are mild, badgers may not hibernate at all, simply waiting out severe frosts in their burrows. Badgers are very picky about their "real estate." Safety, dryness, and an abundance of food nearby are important. To build their vast underground labyrinth, badgers need soft but firm soil. Sandy, sandy loam, or loamy soils are ideal. These permeable soils allow moisture to pass through, keeping the burrow dry. Badgers will never settle in desert areas. A body of water must be located within a few hundred meters of their burrow. Water is needed not only for drinking but also as a rich food source (frogs, mollusks). Badgers prefer to dig burrows on slopes. Firstly, this protects their home from flooding by spring meltwater. Secondly, from such a burrow, it's easier to discreetly observe the surrounding area. The best badgers' habitats are passed down from generation to generation. A single underground "town" (badger fort) with hundreds of entrances and intersections can last up to a century—it's expanded and added to over the years by the great-grandchildren of the original owners. Wild Boar: Reed Tank and All-Terrain Vehicle Now let's move to the shores of our lakes and rivers, overgrown with dense, three-meter-tall reeds. If you hear a powerful crunch, heavy snorting, and splashing, you know it's a fearless boar charging through. The wild boars here are monumental creatures. Adult males can weigh well over 150–180 kilograms. Thanks to its wedge-shaped head, powerful neck, and incredibly tough hide, the boar can smash through reeds like a tank. Wow fact: Despite the males' menacing appearance and enormous tusks, boars are incredibly caring and cohesive creatures. Females and their young live in large "kindergartens"—herds. Mothers work together to protect their striped babies from wolves, share food, and even build enormous winter "nests" out of reeds! They pile up gigantic piles of dry stems, creating a warm den inside, where the entire boar family basks in the harsh winter cold. The boar is a virtually fearless creature. If you don't bother it, it will calmly pass by, digging up the succulent reed roots with its snout. But woe to anyone who dares to harm his striped children—the enraged sow will stop at nothing. Steppe Restaurant: What Do Badgers and Boars Eat for Dinner? Despite the enormous difference in size, both badgers and boars are completely omnivorous. But they obtain their energy in completely different ways. Badger Menu: Gourmet Forager. Badgers hunt exclusively at night. They don't like to chase fast prey, so their diet consists of what can be found right underfoot or shallow in the ground: The badger's main meal is earthworms, large beetles, larvae, and snails. With their sharp claws, they expertly dig up the earth in search of delicacies. If they're lucky, they'll happily catch a steppe mouse, a lizard, or even raid the nest of a ground-nesting bird. He's not afraid of wasp and bumblebee stings—his coarse fur and thick skin are impenetrable, so he often digs up their underground nests for sweet honey and larvae. Towards October, the badger switches to a "diet" of succulent roots, plant bulbs, and berries (if he finds them in river floodplains). He vitally needs to accumulate a thick layer of fat, as he faces six months of winter hibernation without food or water. The Korgalzhyn boar is a walking excavator. His powerful snout is a unique organ, hard as horn, yet incredibly sensitive. He can smell edible roots up to half a meter underground! Here, his diet consists primarily of the succulent, starchy rhizomes of reeds and cattails. To obtain these, he digs up acres of coastal areas, creating veritable "arable lands." The boar is not a vegetarian. Digging up the earth, it consumes grubs, beetles, and the roots of steppe grasses. In an ornithological paradise, boars in reed thickets, alas for the birds, can feast on the eggs and chicks of waterfowl. In winter and spring, boars often hang out near ice holes or in shallow waters where fish, suffocated by the ice, gather, deftly catching them straight from the water. Their powerful jaws can easily snap through thick bones and tough stems. And now that our heroes are well-fed and ready for winter, we leave the reed thickets and emerge into the open, wind-swept steppe to meet a living legend of Kazakhstan. Towards the "space" wanderers. The boar hides in the reeds, the badger tidies up underground. But there are animals in the region that have neither burrows nor reed beds. They spend their entire lives under the scorching sun, piercing wind, or snowstorms in completely open spaces. They run as fast as a car, breathe through a miracle nose, and remember the time when mammoths still roamed the Earth. In the final episode: The Living Legend of Kazakhstan. Why does it need such a nose? How do thousands of mothers simultaneously give birth to their young in the middle of the bare steppe, and why are these fragile antelopes the main "space" wanderers of the Kazakh steppes? Fasten your seatbelts, the grand finale of the "furry" series on Aleboo is ahead!