While taking a walk down a gravel road north of Belle Fourche, a Badger came strolling out of the ditch. I stopped and stood still while it continued heading towards me. Finally, it stopped and stared at me for quite a while before going back into the ditch where it peeked out of the tall grass wondering what I was. After a minute or two it slowly came out of the ditch back onto the road, still looking me over. Eventually it turned and headed back down the road and disappeared into the ditch again.

It is a little hard to see, I zoomed in as much as I could, but the claws on the Badger are at least one and half inches long or more! 

Badger

This odd-looking member of the weasel family makes its home in dry, open country throughout South Dakota. The badger’s coarse pepper-gray fur grows long on the sides, adding to the animal’s flat, low-slung appearance. A distinctive white stripe extends from the nose to its powerful shoulders. Digging for rodents is the badger’s chief occupation. Its forelegs are short, thick and tremendously strong. Large, heavy claws complete its efficient soil-moving apparatus. Badgers are most active during darkness.