Honey badger that leaves Dhs80,000 worth of damage and eats 35 livestock finally caught in RAK after two years

Hessa Saif, Staff Reporter

A 33-year-old citizen, Ali Hassan Musbih Al Qaiydi, caught a rare fierce animal, called “Honey Badger,” after various attempts during the last two years, during which he lost more than Dhs80,000 and 35 heads of livestock.

Apart from the losses, this fierce animal in Ras Al Khaimah disturbed the people of the Al Mussaili region.

Al Qaidi said he tried to catch the animal since it was eating his livestock, so he put several traps to catch it.

“I thought, because of the traces it left by the water basin, it was a tiger or a wolf. I set a tight trap near the area where it came to drink water. Yesterday morning it fell in the trap and I put it in an iron cage,” Al Qaidi added.

After it was trapped, he said he knew it was a honey badger, a fierce animal belonging to the weasel family, which lived in the mountain valley in the area of “Bashiri Valley" for four years.

Because of the dryness, it landed to Al Safra Valley. It used to eat the goats and the local honey cells Al Qaidi bought to produce the mountain honey. Al Qaidi said he handed the animal to the Public Services department in Ras Al Khaimah and they delivered it to the Environment and Natural Reserves Department in Sharjah.