ALTRUISTIC badgers that lend a hand rearing the cubs of other females hinder
more than they help. European badgers (Meles meles) live in close
social groups. In large groups some females don鈥檛 breed but instead help other
badgers to rear their offspring.
But biologists at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University
of Oxford found that the survival of the cubs was linked to how much food they
could gather on their territory, and helpers reduced the group鈥檚 success at
breeding by competing with mothers and cubs for food (Journal of
Zoology, vol 250, p 113). Researcher Rosie Woodroffe, now at the University
of Warwick, says 鈥渉elping behaviour could have been more beneficial in the past,
when badgers faced large carnivores in the UK.鈥�