Coyote and badger spotted traveling together in southern Santa Cruz Mountains

SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, Calif. (KION) The Peninsula Open Space Trust shared a video that it says is a first in the Bay Area and maybe the first of its kind anywhere-- a coyote and badger traveling together through a human-made structure.

The video was taken by a culvert under a highway in the southern Santa Cruz Mountains near Gilroy. POST said studies show that a badger and coyote hunting together can be beneficial for both species.

According to POST's Wildlife Linkages Program Manager, Neal Sharma, researchers have been working to understand how wildlife interact with major roadways in the southern Santa Cruz Mountains for the past two years.

“I have found that this topic tends to be of broad interest to people I meet out in the community — the idea that roads can present challenges and threats to wildlife — and at the same time, we consistently find that animals are able to locate and use features that provide them with safe passage underneath the road surface,” Sharma said.

POST said more than 50 remote-sensor cameras have been deployed at bridges and culverts and have conducted roadkill surveys throughout the area. They said they are working to build a data set to identify areas of safe passage for wildlife and where crossing structures could be useful.

Read more from POST here.