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In the wild

If you set out to see honey badgers in the wild, more often than not you will be disappointed. They are usually solitary, they are thinly distributed, and mostly nocturnal. However, there are a few areas where your chances of seeing them are better than average. Colleen and Keith Begg have listed the following locations in Africa:

• Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, South Africa (formerly known as the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park). This is described as "an excellent area to see honey badgers, especially in the winter when they may forage throughout the day".
• Etosha National Park, Namibia.
• Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe. Honey badgers often scavenge food from the dustbins at the Nyamepi camp at night.
• Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Again, badgers often scavenge food from dustbins at night, in this case at the Sinamatella camp.
• Tsavo National Park, Kenya.

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In captivity

For guaranteed observations of a live honey badger, you need to visit a zoo with captive specimens. Try one of the following:

• Howletts Zoo, England.
• Bloemfontein Zoo, South Africa.
• Johannesburg Zoo, South Africa.
• Pretoria Natl Zoo Gardens, South Africa.
• Zoological Center Tel-Aviv, Israel.
• Tel-Aviv University Zoo, Israel.
• Riyadh Zoological Gardens, Saudi Arabia.
• Sharjah Breeding Centre For Endangered Arabian Wildlife, United Arab Emirates.
• Nehru Zoological Park, India.
• San Diego Zoological Garden, California, USA.

If you are aware of any other places where honey badgers can be seen, please let me know.

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References

w178-01, w179-01.

Picture credits

The honey badger photo used at the head of this Article is © Tim Davis / Photo Researchers, Inc. Used with the permission of the Northern Ohio Ferret Association. Credits for the photos used in the right-hand margin of this page for site navigation can be found on the Credits page.

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