Landscape features, home-range size and density of northern badgers (Meles meles)

Knowledge of badger density is important for their conservation especially in areas with low badger densities. Therefore, we aimed to build a simple model to estimate badger density in northern Europe on the basis of habitat characteristics. A radio-tracking study in southern Finland showed that habitat structure of the landscape affects home-range sizes of northern badgers. The data collected from the literature indicate that badger density and home-range size correlate negatively but the relationship was non-linear, with highest densities and smallest home ranges in England. Consequently, badger density can be estimated on the basis of habitat characteristics of the area: density is higher when the proportion of mixed forests is high and that of large spruce forests low and vice versa. Because other factors, such as hunting and predation may be involved, density values should be treated as rough estimates of the density in different landscapes in Finland.