While no one is watching, farms are uprooting our hog badgers
In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Habiganj and Moulvibazar, hog badgers may still be relatively common — just underreported, underappreciated and increasingly threatened
Hidden beneath the leafy undergrowth of Bangladesh's eastern hills lives a creature few have heard of, let alone seen. The hog badger (Arctonyx collaris), with its pig-like snout, stocky, muscular frame, beige-white fur, and ash-streaked facial mask, might still roam widely across the country's forested landscapes — but you would hardly know it.
This elusive animal is one of Bangladesh's most overlooked carnivores, barely registering in national surveys, policy documents or even casual wildlife conversations.
I kept wondering about this as I scrolled through the photo sequences retrieved from one of our camera traps — a hog badger bathing in a small riparian puddle. The animal, so engrossed in its act, looked like a wet, white furball.
The badger no one talks about
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Hog badgers are nocturnal and powerfully built, with digging claws and a flexible snout adapted for rooting through leaf litter and soft soil. Their primary prey? Earthworms — especially large ones that live in moist, shaded environments. This dependence on soil-dwelling invertebrates makes them highly sensitive to land-use changes, especially those that disturb forest floors.
Globally, hog badgers are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss, persecution, and declining populations across Southeast Asia. They are also listed as Vulnerable in Bangladesh's Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012, but have received little targeted attention in the country's conservation strategies. Even basic information about their population trends or distribution remains largely anecdotal.
Their apparent rarity may reflect our lack of looking.
In forest tracts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Habiganj and Moulvibazar, where they are occasionally photographed on camera traps or caught and beaten by locals, researchers believe they may still be relatively common — just underreported, underappreciated and increasingly threatened.
From forest floor to farmland
In recent years, the landscape of the CHT has undergone a dramatic transformation. One of the fastest-growing land-use changes in the region has been the spread of dragon fruit farming. Touted as a profitable alternative crop, dragon fruit orchards now replace diverse native vegetation with neat rows of concrete posts and climbing vines.
This change is not benign. Dragon fruit farming clears the forest floor, dries out the soil, and removes undergrowth — the exact microhabitats that support worms and shelter digging animals like the hog badger.
"Dragon fruit cultivation requires frequent weeding, chemical inputs, and soil modification," a citizen scientist said back in 2021, then working at a crocodile farm in Cox's Bazar. "This directly affects the worms, and indirectly the badgers that depend on them."
The conflict does not stop there. Hog badgers, drawn to the loosened soils of newly tilled orchards, are often mistaken for crop raiders. In response, farmers have begun using snares, fences or even direct violence to keep "unwanted" wildlife away from their plots.
Without awareness, hog badgers become collateral damage in a growing agricultural frontier.
The conflict nobody is monitoring
Unlike elephants that raid crops or leopards that attack livestock, hog badgers generate no headlines or concern. Their disappearances are quiet, undocumented and usually unnoticed.
But ask around in the hills, and locals will tell you of a time when these animals were more commonly seen — crossing paths at night, foraging by the roadside, or rooted out by hunting dogs.
Most of those stories are fading now. Without public recognition or policy attention, the hog badger is at risk of disappearing in silence.
In other parts of the world, badgers have sparked national debates and conservation strategies. In the United Kingdom, the European badger (Meles meles) is legally protected and the subject of long-running conflict between conservationists and the farming sector, particularly due to its role in spreading bovine tuberculosis.
While controversial culling programs have drawn criticism, the intense focus on badgers in the UK has also led to scientific studies, public education campaigns and infrastructure solutions like road underpasses and badger-friendly fencing. Some regions have turned to vaccination programmes instead of culling, reflecting a shift toward coexistence.
Bangladesh does not face the same type of conflict, but it can take a page from the UK in one vital way: Do not wait for a crisis; species do not need to become pests or headlines to deserve protection.
Why hog badgers matter
Despite their obscurity, hog badgers serve important ecological functions. As top-level soil foragers, they help regulate earthworm populations and improve soil aeration through their digging. In essence, they engineer their habitats, creating small disturbances that benefit soil health and forest regeneration.
Their presence is a strong indicator of moist, healthy, worm-rich forest floors — the kind increasingly rare in Bangladesh's hill forests. Losing them may signal the loss of a much broader web of ecological interactions that support biodiversity in these landscapes.
There is a cultural angle too. In some ethnic minority communities in the CHT, hog badgers have been hunted traditionally, but they also feature in folklore and are respected as part of the natural order. These traditions are fading as young people leave the hills or lose contact with forest life.
A way forward
Hope for the hog badger still exists. Camera trap data, local interviews and community-based forest monitoring suggest that small populations persist in protected and semi-protected areas, including village commons and community forests.
But protection will require more than passive tolerance. Awareness campaigns for farmers and night guards, training on non-lethal deterrents, and basic ecological studies could go a long way in reducing conflict and improving outcomes for this species.
Most importantly, Bangladesh's conservation community needs to broaden its lens beyond the iconic species. The future of biodiversity here depends on safeguarding the unsung: animals like the hog badger that live underground, work at night, and vanish without protest.
If we wait until it is gone to notice, we will have missed the point of conservation altogether. Because often, it is the animals we ignore that tell us the most about whether our landscapes are still wild — or whether the silence has already taken over.
