Abstract
Abstract We investigated the social interactions and spatial organization of the Japanese badger (Meles anakuma) using radiotelemetry. Fifty-two individuals (29 males and 23 females) were trapped and marked (tattooed) between 1990 and 1997 from a population with a density of 4 individuals/km2. Twenty-one of these individuals were subsequently radiotracked. The average home-range size of males expanded from an average of X = 33.0 ha ± 18.1 SD in the nonmating season to 62.6 ± 48.2 ha in the mating season, and was significantly larger than the home-range size of females (15.2 ± 6.3 ha in the mating season; with a lack of data on individual female home-range–size change between seasons). We posit that this range expansion by males occurred to encompass the key resource of estrous females during the breeding season; thus, males exhibited a flexible home-range strategy. Females with cubs had home ranges exclusive of other adult females, configured around areas rich in food resources, indicative of intrasex te...
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