Clever honey badger can out-fox humans
Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem (Nature) Saturday, 3 p.m., PBS
Somewhere in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, Brian Jones and Stoffel continue their battle for supremacy.
Jones is a wildlife conservationist at an animal rehabilitation centre. Stoffel is a surly honey badger. They square off at regular intervals in Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem, airing on the PBS program Nature. Jones builds a cage; Stoffel escapes.
It’s yet another deserved tribute to a toothy creature that looks like the spawn of a skunk and a sloth with the charm of a komodo dragon.
Honey badgers have a huge online following.
The Crazy Nasty ass Honey Badger, with narration by a human named Randall, has about 66 million views on YouTube. (“Eating larva? How disgusting is that!”) A poisonous snake? Yum! (They sleep off the poison).
The animals max out at around 10 kilograms, but they can attack anything moving if they feel bothered.
Over at the rehab centre, rhinos and lions gambol peacefully until Stoffel scurries into view. “Can’t help but love him, he’s so brave,” says Jones, who watched him lock jaws on a rhino’s belly and bite a lion.
Beekeepers often shoot them because they destroy costly hives to get at their favourite food. One badger survived 300 stings. Jones rescued Stoffel from a trap some 20 years ago and eventually procured him badger-ess Hammy in the hopes of calming him down.
Now we see him clawing open the bottom lock on a chain-link fence, while she scurries up to undo the top bolt. Mission achieved, he holds the door open for his bride and off they go.
Honey badgers have amazing problem-solving skills. After Jones confines him in what looks like a deep, sunken pen with a single tree in the middle, he spends the night breaking off its branches to build a ladder.
In another part of Kruger National Park, zoologist Low de Vries tracks them prowling at the dump. He’s fascinated by the honey badger, which is really of the weasel family. He wonders, why do pups hang around with their mother for two years?
The night time footage frustrated hyenas and porcupines giving up their fair share of leftovers — thanks to the badgers ejecting a foul fluid from their anal pouches.
In the show, bee-keeper Guy Stubbs keeps bringing new badger-proof hives to the rehab centre, where Stoffel and Hammy invariably find a way to embarrass him in front of the cameras.
But Stoffel’s escapes seem thwarted as the program ends. Jones has finally encased his pen with an electric fence. As he bends over the wall to greet his pet, Stoffel stands on his hind legs, growling with such anger you would not be surprised if smoke came out of his ears and his head swivelled 360 degrees.