Arizona Badger (Taxidea taxus)

During a recent camping trip, my friends noticed the sun-bleached remnants of a badger’s skull. Of course, they thought I can do something with it…

The high desert badger (Taxidea taxus), also known as the American Badger, is the only badger sub-species found in Arizona. It is a solitary, nocturnal predator that lives in remote areas where it can dig into the ground for feeding and shelter.

I have not seen a high desert badger alive, so found this photo of it on the internet.

My task was two-fold: to put together the pieces of the skull, jaw and snout even if the bones were badly chewed by a larger predator; and, to reconstruct a badger’s attitude using wood, hide and fur from other species.

I decided to use two pieces of my favorite “desert drift” wood to build the “attitude angle”. I mean I wanted the ferocious carnivore/predator attitude of the 20 pound Arizona badger to be reflected through the curves of the wood and reconstructed skull.

Here is how I decided on angle and attitude fluidity between the wood and the skull:

Note that since the top of the skull was badly damaged, I covered it with the tail of a jackrabbit. The pointed end of the tail gave a sense of aiming and direction to badger’s look.

Now I had to decide how to give the badger a body.  When I join my sculpture and taxidermy, I like simplicity in the materials I use. My goal is always to capture a feeling or attitude rather than intricate shapes or colours.

So, based on the internet photo above, I decided to use part of a wolf’s tail to make the back of the badger.

I think that the hare tail, the wolf tail and the desert drift wood gave that reconstructed Arizona badger skull a new identity and a fearless attitude!

April 20, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018